Heaven in a Handbasket, Part V

Today is apparently a “filler” day. We do little of substance, just tinkering with our recipes some more. I can’t get mine past a 62, but I keep trying, thinking about what Optimus said. I could win this thing. The public would vote for me because they loved my story. 

But the public forgets fast, and after the show, then what? I keep working at the restaurant, and manage to stretch the money across four years of school? I could do that… maybe. And then what? Go back to auditioning? Optimus is probably friends with everyone who casts shows here, and he’ll be pissed at me. That doesn’t bode well for my future in the industry.

But if I agree with the deal, they’d probably only give me one role. And I’d only get it because they wanted Nepo Baby to win the show, which would make me…a lot like Nepo Baby, getting a spot I didn’t earn.

But does anyone earn what they get?

Should I just give the rich asshole what he wants?

“What’s your best score?” Dave asks, interrupting my thoughts.

I turn to look at him. “62.”

He sighs. “58.”

“You really want to win this competition?”

He looks surprised. “Yeah. I mean, I know my dad wants me to be a lawyer, but I’ve always loved cooking. It’d be nice if I could at least do this on the side, you know? Maybe retire once we get to Greenway and open a restaurant.”

Even if I drop out, he won’t win. Nepo Baby will.

I rub my eyes, tired of staring at the screen. “You want to get out of here?”

“Sure.”

We go to a bar on Level 23 and get drinks. I stare into mine, trying to make sense of everything. “All I want is to go back home.”

“I kinda do, too.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, the music thrumming behind us. It’s nice having a new friend to talk to.

“Are we allowed to talk about the contest even though we’re competitors?” I ask after a minute.

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re in law school, I assume you actually read all that shit the rest of us just signed.”

“You know, I think we can.” He pulls out his tablet and taps at it for a minute. “Yeah, it doesn’t forbid talking to other competitors. Guess they don’t care if we work together and split the money or whatever. We just can’t publicly share anything about the contest or tell anyone how we’re doing until it’s over. Why?”

“What’s your best guess for the formula? I’m not going to steal it, I promise. I might even drop out.”

“What?” He looks at me. “Why would you do that?”

“It’s…a long story. But really, what do you think?”

He sighs. “I don’t know, I’m not even close. I keep thinking spices, but nothing seems right, you know? I tried ginger today, and it was not good. Tasted more like ginger ale.”

“Same.” I toy with the napkins, which are made of some stain-resistant “super cloth” supposedly invented by one of Optimus Pryme’s friends just for this trip. “The stuff I know is in it doesn’t get me a better number—in fact, it dings my score. But the AI isn’t judging the final product, the people are, so maybe it doesn’t matter.”

Dave raises an eyebrow. “The stuff you know is in it? Like sugar and carbonated water?”

“No, not that. The flavors I can definitely taste.”

“Which ones are those?”

“Cinnamon for sure. Just a hint. Not as much as in the Cinnamon Roll Cool flavor, when they used to make that. But a super tiny amount.”

He nods. “That sounds right. Didn’t make my score go up either.”

“And then cloves or clove oil.”

“Cloves? Like you’d put in a ham? God, I haven’t had real ham since Earth. They only got ten in at the market last December, and they were gone before my mom got there, so we had to have turkey for Christmas.”

“That’s so sad.”

He sighs. “I know, I know, rich people on a spaceship problems.”

“That should be a hashtag.”

“Cloves, though? You think that’s the secret ingredient in Cool Soda?”

I lean forward over my drink. “Keep your voice down. They say Optimus’ AIs are listening everywhere.”

“So? Why would he even care about the formula? Besides, your guess will be revealed tomorrow anyway.”

“I don’t know about that. But yes, that’s what I taste.” He has a point about Optimus—why does that guy GAF? “It’s that slightly metallic flavor no other drink company has ever replicated. It tastes like biting into a clove. And you know what else? I don’t think they really want us to find the formula.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone paid top dollar for those Cools when they started running low. If no one guesses the right formula, then it remains scarce, and the prices stay high. You know at least a few people still have theirs.”

“But they’re only scarce until next month.”

“Maybe not. You know what they said about the encryption on those hard drives—if someone tried to hack them, they’d lock us out forever.”

“That hasn’t happened, though. Optimus wouldn’t let it.”

The answer to my question clicks into place. “He might if it’s profitable for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You underestimate how arrogant he is. I think he probably put someone up to it, thinking they’d crack it, and now he’s locked out, too. Hence this competition.”

Dave narrows his eyes at me. “Why are you telling me this theory?”

“Optimus thinks if I win the taste test, it’ll be a pity party, because of that fight I had with Christy, and everyone knowing how my parents screwed me over. He offered me money to quit the contest.”

“He did what?” 

I steamroll right over his question. “And I think if I don’t do it…I might never get my break in television. He’s friends with all the people who run the Hollywood level, you know. I’ve just been trying to figure out why he would care. I don’t think it’s just about wanting Nepo Baby to win.”

“Who?”

“Rolex guy. He’s related to someone at Sudsbury.”

“That’s a conflict of—oh, right. Those are encouraged here. Damn.” Dave leans back, shaking his head. “Are you going to take the deal?”

“Are you planning to open your restaurant?” I ask Dave.

He ignores me. “Carissa, I have an idea.”

“What?”

“This place…it’s both better and worse than trying to make it in the real Hollywood, right? But I don’t think you considered one of the ways it’s better.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were right about Optimus and his cronies running everything. It’s why half the shows they produce suck. They aren’t creative, they just exploit people who are.”

“So I should exploit him back better?”

“No, not at all.” He sounds excited. “This place is so much smaller than the world we left behind, Carissa. They won’t be able to ruin everything like they did at home.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, here is the perfect place to start making indie films. You’ll have an audience desperate for new content. And unlike at home, where billionaires control all the big platforms and social media channels, and the chances of going viral are like one in a hundred million, it won’t be hard to find an audience. Just put up a website and share it to a few people, and if your show or film is decent, it’ll have an audience. That’s something you could never do at home.”

I sit up and stare into my drink, wondering if he’s right.

The next morning, as promised, Optimus Pryme Beef joins me on the elevator. I suspect he marked it as full to shuffle everyone else into another car.

“Well, what do you say?” he asks as soon as the doors close.

“I have another proposal for you,” I say. “I want the money, but I want something else too. I want to be on the lifeboat.”

His brow furrows, bucking the Botox.“What lifeboat?” 

“The ship to go back home. No offense, but Heaven isn’t my kinda place. I don’t really want to go live like a pioneer on some new planet, okay? So when we get where we’re going, and you send everyone else who discovers they don’t like being a pioneer back, I want a slot. Do that, and I’ll drop out of this competition right now.”

Optimus frowns. “I can’t do that.”

“Then I guess I can’t drop out.”

“No, I mean I can’t do it because there is no ship back. This is a one-way trip, that’s what you and everyone else agreed to.”

I roll my eyes. “I know what the brochures say, but come on. There’s got to be a way. What if we get attacked by aliens or something? What if we get there and the planet isn’t habitable?”

“Then we go on to the next one on the list until we find one that is. And we’re not retreating from aliens—this ship is well-equipped with weapons.”

For fuck’s sake, this guy thinks he can beat aliens with his favorite laser toys and one railgun. I knew he was arrogant, but not this arrogant. I’ve really underestimated him. Or overestimated, depending on how you look at it, I guess.

I rake my hands through my hair, desperately trying to think of another angle. “Okay, but surely you know that when we get where we’re going, some of these extremely well-heeled passengers are going to discover the pioneer life isn’t for them, right? When the going gets tough, the rich and pampered get going home, yeah? There has to be a way to get them home before they leave you a bad review or whatever?”

Optimus looks genuinely confused. “No, you’re wrong. Who would want to leave Heaven?”

“People who aren’t used to doing their own laundry or sleeping in tents or not having access to Amazon and Macy’s and Grubhub?”

“That’s what the robots are for, to cook and clean and do chores for everyone.”

“And the lack of amenities? No shopping, no traveling to five-star resorts, no Michelin star restaurants…”

“There’s a Michelin star restaurant on level 85.”

I grit my teeth. “You can’t seriously believe no one will want to go home?”

“No, they won’t. The people on this trip all want to live a life free of oppressive government overreach and cancel culture. They know it won’t be easy, but they’re committed anyway. Isn’t that why you chose to come?”

“I didn’t choose this!” I snap. “My parents chose. I was 14, I didn’t get a fucking say. But I’m 19 now, and they can’t make me stay here, so I’m asking you to please let me go back home, where I had a life, where I was happy.”

Optimus Pryme spreads his hands. “If I could, I would, but like I said, there’s no ship back.”

“What about this?” I rap the walls. “It could make the return trip, right?”

“We’re taking it apart and down to the planet once we confirm viability. For the first several years, we’ll continue to live in the inner part of it and use the rest to build our first city.”

I stare at him in disbelief. “You really planned this trip with no way to return?”

“Carissa.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’re young and impulsive, but trust me, you’ll grow to love Heaven as much as the rest of us. Now go in there and make us proud.”

Then he takes his hand back, taps his tablet, and the doors open. He’s gone a second later.

On the last day of the competition, we get our ingredients. I make my best-guess formula quickly, already second-guessing my decision to stay in. But it’s not like I can trust Optimus or his cronies at Sudsbury, and Dave wasn’t wrong about the indie opportunities here…

The judges taste-test our drinks before the doors open to the public. Mine gets the expected comments from the AI after I pour some into its analyzer port. 

“Hints of the real thing, but not quite there. An A-plus effort, definitely making strides toward authenticity.”

“Wow, this tastes like real Cool,” Sharla says when she tries it.

Allan swirls the drink around in his mouth like wine again. “I have to say, it really has that ring of authenticity. How did you do it?”

“I just used all the flavors I tasted in it.”

Floyd sips his. “Oh yes, this is the real deal. Did you steal some of the real thing?”

The public has similar responses. They overwhelmingly flock to my booth, and I run out of drinks inside an hour. We’re not allowed to make more.

The voting doesn’t seem to take long when you know what’s going to happen, and not just because of pity votes.

Nepo Baby wins the prize, I’m second, and Dave is third. That means I get a whopping $5,000.

Now, what if the rest of my plan doesn’t work?

But when I get back home, someone waits in the living room.

It’s Optimus Pryme.

I freeze in the doorway. Shit. Is he going to throw me out the airlock because I wouldn’t go along with his stupid plan?

“It’s okay, Carissa,” Optimus says. “I just want to talk.”

I remain in the doorway, hand on the knob. “So talk.”

“I gave you an opportunity to do the right thing.”

“If I should mysteriously die in an accident, I’ve already told several people what you did,” I snap. “And made a video about it. Hid copies all over the place, on devices that will email the video to everyone on this shitship if I don’t log in daily. And I’m not just talking about your plan to have me drop out of the competition. I mean, I know the truth about the competition, too.”

“What about it?”

“I have a strong sense of taste, and I know what’s in Cool Soda. Always have. I assumed the AI was wrong because all the people describing Cool to it were wrong, but then it occurred to me that maybe it was programmed to be wrong. By the guy who oversees all the software that runs this ship.”

“And why would I do that?”

“To maintain scarcity. That’s why you put your best hackers up to breaking into the drives, didn’t you? Yeah, I figured it out. That drive isn’t going to unlock in a month, so this competition was a way to find the real formula, or the closest thing you could. But not so you could actually sell it. I was right, or close to it, but that doesn’t benefit you, because it doesn’t keep the scarcity going. You wanted the drives to lock up forever so you could make more money selling the remaining beverages, then ten or twenty years from now, you or Sudsbury releases a brand-new soda that’s actually the old Cool formula. The one you now have, which the bot claimed wasn’t good enough. You’ll probably have a patent on it. You know, a place like this allows you to screw over your fellow Richie Riches in a way you couldn’t on Earth. And when you get that shopping mall up and running, money will be important all over again, won’t it?”

He stares at me, unblinking. “What do you want in exchange for your silence about this colorful and unfounded theory?”

“Two things. Don’t tell your friends in the Hollywood district to blacklist me.”

“And?”

“And when Heaven goes to Hell in a handbasket, and you’re deposed, and someone smarter than you has the sense to tear down the mall, convert this bucket back into a ship, and plan that mission back home, I will be on it. Write something into the code to be sure the ship’s AI lets me on no matter what, do it some other way, I don’t care. Hell, write yourself in too if you think you’ll live that long.”

Optimus stands up and walks over to the door. I step aside, hoping he’ll leave.

“It was my daughter,” he says quietly. “We’d bought all the Cools on the ship, and she wanted more, and I…thought I could hack the hard drive without it locking up. Mr. Sudsbury had his own reasons for sending his best hackers to help.”

“You permanently lost the formula so your daughter wouldn’t have to wait a few months?”

He sighed. “She was….confused, like you. Said she hated Heaven. I thought having her favorite drink would help.”

“But you’re not really a hacker. You’re just a guy who buys tech companies other people create. And your AI knew my formula was the closest, which is why it overruled the taste testers.”

He looks away. “You’re wrong about Heaven.”

“Then doing what I want should be easy. It’ll never amount to anything,” I shoot back. “Besides, you’re forgetting something.”

“What’s that?”

“Scarcity. You love it. This whole place runs on it.” I gesture at the walls. “Think how scarce tickets back to Earth will be if everyone wants one. You could make another fortune.”

“Nobody’s going to want to—”

“Then you can overcharge anyone who wants to go back to Earth for a…visit. You know I’m right.”

Optimus Pryme glowers at me for a minute, then looks up at the ceiling. “All right, you have a deal.”

The king of Heaven walks out the door and doesn’t look back.

Heaven in a Handbasket, Part IV

This stretches out over half an hour in true reality-TV style. The tears. The sobs. The tension as everyone waits with bated breath to hear who’s next. At this point, I just want to stay on the show long enough to get my face on more than one episode.

After a lot of histrionics, I’m still in the running. Red Bottoms and some guy in a bowtie are out.

Which means Christy and Dave are both still in, so that’s fun.

“Now we have a special treat for those of you lucky eight still remaining.” Bracelets jangle on Sharla’s wrists as she reaches for a small cylinder on her table covered by a white cloth. “To help you remember the taste of the real deal, we have what we believe is the last existing can of Cool Soda from Earth.”

“Damn, I thought my dad bought the last one,” mumbles a girl behind me.

Months. It’s been months since I even heard anyone talk about trading for one. They were trading for a lot as the limited stock in the stores dwindled. At one point, you could get thousands of credits for a single can.

My fingers tighten on the tablet as cheers go up all around us. The can is divided among slightly larger cups, and we each get one. Some of these rich idiots are swirling it around in their mouths like it’s wine. I do a hard eyeroll and drink mine like a normal person. I drink it slowly, savoring it, but I’m not pretending to be a soda sommelier or some bullshit.

“I’d forgotten how good this was,” Christy says as I finish my last sip.

I pointedly ignore her.

Eventually, Allan tells us to compare notes and plan our recipes for our next joint effort tomorrow. Christy starts chatting with Dave and Hirsch. I look around the room for someone else to talk to, but I don’t know any of these people. So, I wander over to the next nearest group and try to enter the convo by commenting on how good it was to taste real Cool Soda again. They all look at me like I have two heads.

Still not one of the cool kids here in Heaven, I guess.

I go back to my station just in time for Sharla to show up, wanting to chat. Which means stir up shit for the cameras because reality show.

“So I hear you two are sisters,” she says excitedly, as if Christy and I were unaware of this fact.

“We are.” Christy matches her enthusiasm and slings an arm around me. I shrug her off, realizing one second too late that I’m playing right into Sharla’s hands.

“You don’t get along.” The way her eyes blink reminds me of a snake about to strike. Not that we have snakes here. The reptile kind, anyway.

“No,” I say at the same time as Christy says, “Of course we do!”

Dave’s eyes flick back and forth like he isn’t sure what’s going on. I don’t think he knows why Christy and I don’t talk much anymore.

Sharla is tracking this, too, and her eyes finally settle on me. “You two both had an interest in him?”

“Contrary to popular belief, women can fight over things that are not men,” I snap.

“She used to have a crush on him,” Christy says, probably just to piss me off.

Fuck it. If Sharla wants a show, I’ll give her a show. At least I’ll get some airtime out of it.

“That was over five years ago, and I’ve moved on. It’s not why we don’t talk.” I shift my gaze back to Sharla, to the cameras. “Ironically, it’s the subject of this reality show.” I point at the holographic Cool logo floating in the air over our heads. 

“Cool Soda is why you don’t talk?” Sharla waves at the tables.

“Right. So last year, the markets sold the last of the cans they’d brought on board. I still had my one free commemorative bottle at home. In my room that I’m forced to share with her.” I glare at Christy. “Those bottles got scarce. And let’s face it, most of the people on this ship have more money than sense, so they were going for a lot. I was going to sell mine so I could go to the performing arts school on level 51. 

“I got in, you know.” I keep my eyes on Christy. She stares down at her feet. “Just like you got into a good engineering college, but this ship is full of geniuses, so you couldn’t get a scholarship. And people here don’t really value the performing arts, so there aren’t any scholarships for that.”

“And what happened with the Cool? You decided not to sell?” Sharla asks.

“No. I came home one day, and the bottle was gone from my room. Someone decided to sell it so Christy could go to college instead of me.”

“You sold her Cool?” Dave looks at Christy as if he doesn’t really know her. He doesn’t.

“No!” Her head snaps up. “My parents did. To get the money to send me to college. Because I got into engineering school and could actually have a future, and she was just going to waste the money on performing arts school. Look, I didn’t know they were going to do it, but after they did, what was I supposed to do? Not go to college?”

“Yeah, well, that would have freed up my money, wouldn’t it?” I snap.

“So this project has a really personal connection for you,” Sharla finishes.

I shrug. “You could say so.”

“Well, your performing isn’t that great. You got turned down at all those auditions, didn’t you? At least I’m doing really well in school.” Christy is desperately trying to get Sharla’s attention again.

“You could work and save money for school,” Sharla suggests.

“I do work. I make $18,000 a year working in a robot restaurant,” I say.

“Cooking?” Dave asks.

“Mostly just supervising the robots.”

“I’m going to build them one day,” Christy says. “And Dave’s going to do IP patent law for designs like mine.”

“Great, I’m sure you’ll have fantastic careers. Are we done shooting for the day?” I ask.

Sharla glances at her tablet. “Yes.”

I take the elevator back down to level two, hoping I’ll beat Christy. She and Dave were talking in the hallway, arguing really, so that should be one realistic goal, anyway.

The next morning, I wake up to a slew of notifications. Apparently, overnight, my socials all gained hundreds of followers, which is impressive on an intranet of only about 70,000 people. I check out the show pages and see their clip of the blowout is doing bigger numbers than anything else they posted. But the comments section…

The people my age, other kids and young adults whose parents forced them onto this shitship, are mostly sympathetic. But the old people think I’m an ungrateful little bitch who should appreciate my parents’ efforts to help Christy do something useful with her life. Because TV shows like the one they’re watching aren’t fucking useful, I guess.

On the elevator, strangers introduce themselves to me. Most of them are my age and say they hope I win. Some offer suggestions for secret ingredients I should try, but none of them sound quite right.

On floor 19, the elevator clears, and I think I’m going to ride alone the rest of the way up when a man rushes to get in. He wears a black ballcap and has an unsteady, loping gait like a giraffe.

“It’s nice to meet you, Carissa,” he says, and I recognize the voice almost instantly.

It’s Optimus Fucking Pryme Beef, in the elevator with me. I’ve never actually met him before.

The door closes behind him, and he leans against the wall. “Thought we could have a chat.”

“What do you want?” I know some people would be thrilled to meet him, but IDGAF about pampered billionaires.

“Your scene yesterday attracted some attention. The Sudsbury Soda Corp, which has the right to produce Cool Soda, is actually the sponsor of this show, you know.”

“Duh.”

“And they’d like to make you an offer.”

“Then where are they?”

He smiles. “They asked me to extend the offer. They want to pay for you to go to that performing arts school on level 51.”

“In exchange for…”

“They’d like you to drop out of the show.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m going to win. I’m not even close to cracking the formula—ask your brilliant AI if you don’t believe me.”

“It’s not about your abilities.” He scratches his head under the cap. “Chris Johnson is the nephew of Sudsbury Soda’s CEO. He’s going to run that business one day, so it only makes sense that he should win.”

“Again, I’m not a threat to him, but doesn’t that seem like, I dunno, a conflict of interest?”

Optimus Pryme Beef smiles. “I guess you haven’t read my book. It turns out conflicts of interest are actually beneficial in a true free market, so they’re totally legal and encouraged here in Heaven.”

This shitship just gets worse every time I turn around.

The elevator dings, but Optimus hits the pause button on the panel to stop the doors from opening yet. “As for you, the AI favors you to win.”

“Even though I don’t know the fucking formula and probably never will?”

He shrugs. “No one else does either. But on the final day, the studio will open to the public for a taste test. The results will count for half your final score, and the judge’s votes for the other.”

“I still don’t see why I’m favored to win.”

“You weren’t until yesterday, with that scene where you explained your tragic backstory.”

“Oh.” Of course. It’s like when someone goes on Sing Your Heart Out and they’re off-key and the judges are like, I dunno man, I think you were a little pitchy, and the singer cries, and someone better gets voted off because everyone voted for the crier, or the person with the sad backstory about being a cancer-stricken orphan or living under a bridge or whatever.

“Look, we know you don’t really want to be on a reality cooking show,” Optimus says. “And the winnings wouldn’t pay for more than a year of performing arts school. But hey, maybe you could get a role on one of the dramas Sudsbury sponsors after you graduate.”

“Would I be able to get that in writing?”

“Uh, well, I don’t know about that…”

It all starts to click into place for me. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You don’t want me to win because you need Nepo Baby to win. You claim I might get a role on a show Sudsbury sponsors, but can’t put that in writing. How about the rest of it? Will I get it in writing that Sudsbury is going to pay my tuition?”

“You’ll have to sign an NDA, then Sudsbury will transfer the money as soon as you drop out.” The pause ticks down to 0, and the doors slide open. Optimus steps into the doorway. “You have until tomorrow morning to decide. I’ll see you here then.”

Short Story Saturday: Heaven in a Handbasket, Part III

Our ingredients are delivered to the counter, and I measure them while Dave programs the oven under the counter. Then he mixes the batter, hand-stirring it 200 times because the oven is going to take all our allotted energy usage. That’s another thing the rich don’t know how to limit.

Which is why in Heaven, sometimes they give us weekly power usage limits. Well, us poors down on the lottery deck always have them. The Daves of the world can buy their way out of them, to an extent. They can double their limit for a fee, but no more than that in an energy crisis.

The cookies come out better than I thought, light and golden. I want to taste one, but the AI says we have to let the judges try first.

I don’t recognize the judges, Floyd something and Sharla something, but Dave falls all over himself saying how he used to watch their cooking shows back on Earth. I bob my head and mumble, “Same.”

After they leave, we get to eat the remaining cookies while waiting for a verdict, which takes about three hours. Finally, the twelve contestants are announced. I’m thinking about what I did wrong in my Meet the Magnificents audition when Dave whacks me in the arm.

“What?” I glare at him.

“That’s you! You got through! You’re the last one, after me.”

I glance at the wall screen, and he’s right. Mine is the last name on the list of twelve candidates.

“But why would they put me through? I don’t even like cooking.”

He shrugs. “Beats me. Maybe it’s politics, you know? They need a lottery winner to appeal to that demographic.”

“You mean poor again.”

That’s when I see another familiar name on the list.

“Shit,” I say.

“What?” he asks.

“It’s Christy.”

***

I get seven paid days off a year and another seven unpaid days. Fortunately, I can’t afford to go anywhere, so I still have all my paid days this year. I take one on Monday, the first day of the competition. 

When I show up to the set and find myself with eleven extremely well-dressed people, I regret wearing old clothes because I was worried about food stains. Unlike Dave, I don’t know any of these people, but they all look like they paid to be here, or their parents did. I recognize labels like Chanel and even a pair of red-bottoms. One of the men is wearing a Rolex. 

Everyone is asked to step forward and introduce themselves. Rolex guy lives on deck 90 and says he’s “always wanted to pursue my passion for cooking when I’m not giving investment advice.” The woman in the red-bottomed heels says she wants to ‘overcome the deficiencies in the ship’s food supply and make the best desserts possible in this food desert.’ 

It doesn’t really get better from there.

When it’s my turn, I state my name and deliver a bullshit line about my own “passion for food,” adding that I have been working in a restaurant for five months since we all came out of cryosleep. Technically, that’s true, and I don’t specifically say I’m a cook there, or what kind of restaurant it is.

The AI disappears, and the show’s host, Allan Bloomington, steps out of a pocket door. Everyone eagerly shakes his hand before he goes to the table in the front of the room. “Thank you for coming. We’re excited to welcome finalists from top to bottom of the ship.”

Top and bottom are not great descriptors on a spaceship, but people still use them. We do have artificial gravity, not fully the same as Earth’s, but enough to keep stuff from floating away. The upper decks are considered the “top” of the ship.

Allan wanders up and down the aisles of tables, rubbing his hands together as he talks about how excited he is, then introduces the judges, Floyd Robbins and Sharla Harper. Floyd had a big show called Restaurant Ripoffs back on Earth, and now he’s here—why, I have no idea. Sharla apparently edits a food magazine.

“This is no ordinary cooking show,” says Floyd. “The food and beverage formula hard drives will be unencrypted in less than a month. Before that time, we’re holding a contest to see who can guess the formula, or come closest to guessing it, for one beloved product.”

The hard drives are a deal Optimus Pryme Beef made with the CEOs of the companies that control most of the popular food brands on Earth. See, we were all going to dive through a wormhole and end up light-years away from Earth, right? Having supplies shipped in from Earth would take decades—hell, just ordering would take decades—and billionaires don’t like to wait. Optimus Pryme convinced the CEOs that there was no harm in entrusting us with the top-secret formulas for things like the most popular brands of chips and candy bars. It wasn’t like we could really tell anyone back on Earth, yeah? And any communications we did send would hit one of the big receivers first and could be screened for top-secret info. In exchange, the CEOs all got huge paychecks for allowing Heaven to produce its own popular products.

But the CEOs needed to make sure no one passed anything on before getting too far out from Earth—even though most of us were in cryosleep. Enter the encrypted hard drives. Once the ship has been on the other side of the wormhole for six months, the main ship’s server is programmed to unencrypt the drives.

That’s in about a month, and apparently, now they want people to try to recreate the formulas. Hell, people have been doing that for months—just not on a TV show and not very successfully.

“The goal is to recreate Cool Soda,” Floyd says, and several people gasp.

I lick my lips. Of course, they sent a certain limited amount of branded items with us, and naturally, the branded stuff was in super high demand. Every house came with one Cool Soda for each occupant. None of the lottery winners could afford to buy more, and officially, the ship was completely out, although there were rumors that one or two people had hoarded a few cans.

There were other products, of course, for sale as Tier 3 items. The stores have half a dozen soda brands exclusive to this ship. There just aren’t any of the exact items everyone remembers around at this point, unless they’re hidden in someone’s safe.

“If you succeed in coming the closest to replicating the taste,” Sharla adds. “You’ll receive the grand prize of $100,000.”

Damn. That would help me get my own apartment and pay for almost a year of the drama school on level 51. Now all I have to do is recreate a classic soda everyone has loved for years. Nothing to it, right?

“Before we left, each of the CEOs confirmed that we would be able to recreate their concoctions using ingredients we could produce on board,” Sharla continues. “You can use anything, although it’s also been confirmed that no Tier 4 or 5 ingredients will be needed.”

Not surprising. Those are almost exclusively animal products, and resource-heavy ones at that. Sugar is Tier 3 because both sugar beets and corn are resource-intensive crops, and sugar requires processing. Sugarcane uses even more water and isn’t grown at all.

The rest of a soda is what—carbonated water and a few flavorings?

“Your first day will be dedicated to research,” Allan continues. “We’re going for a tour of several food processing plants, and you will be allowed to taste a small amount of anything you like.”

We have access to something like the internet here. Technically, it’s an intranet, because we can no longer access any servers on Earth. However, Optimus Pryme Beef does own several tech companies back there, and he had some of his best geeks download all of Wikipedia, all of reddit, and a bunch of other sites so we could access “all of human knowledge.” Again, nowhere near all of it, but better than nothing. The geeks created new servers for these sites that could be accessed and added to from Heaven.

Other people are looking at the Cool Soda Wiki as we ride the elevator up to Deck 22. Amateurs. Do they think they’re going to find a section spelling out the secret formula? A glance at the screen next to me reveals that it is, in fact, “a closely guarded trade secret.” No shit. All the Wiki really says is that the torus around our ship providing artificial gravity is the only reason we can have carbonated drinks here.

I try to remember the taste, but I keep getting angry thinking about the four cans we were allotted. I was saving mine to drink on my birthday, then I decided to save it to sell for money to get my own apartment, and then it was gone.

Christy catches up with me as we leave the plant and head back to the lab. “Well, what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About the ingredients.”

“Like I would tell you? So you can take something else from me?”

She looks hurt, but only briefly. “That wasn’t my fault. You have a theory then?”

I walk faster and try to leave her in the dust.

As luck would not have it, the producers have another surprise to throw at us when we arrive back in the lab.

“You’ll all be working in groups,” says Sharla, clapping her hands together. “When I call your name, please go stand at the assigned table.”

I know how these reality shows go. The producers will intentionally pair you with people you can’t stand to create drama, which means…

I’m placed in a group with Christy and Dave.

“You’ll each have to prove yourself in an individual challenge that earns points for your group,” Floyd drones at the front of the room as I go stand with my new teammates. FML. “For the first challenge, you will try to recreate Cool Soda. This is not your final formula, and we’re not expecting anyone to nail it. The goal is to produce the closest thing you can to the original formula, as judged by an AI.”

“So the AI already knows the formula?” asks Rolex at the next table.

Allan shakes his head. “No, the AI has access to hundreds of human descriptions of what it tastes like.”

Great.

We all select ingredients from a screen, and the AI rates us on how similar it believes each drink is to the real deal. As I add or remove ingredients, the numbers go up and down. At one point, I’m as high as 48 percent.

I wonder how high Christy’s top score is.

When the time is up, we return to our stations. Christy has been placed on my right, Dave on my left. Perfect.

“How high was your score?” Christy asks me.

I shrug. I’m not telling her shit.

She leans around me and looks at Dave. “What about you?”

“43.”

“I got to 42.”

“Congrats on discovering the meaning of life,” I say, and she blinks at me.

Dave smirks and looks back at his tablet. Rolex Dude on the other side of him looks confused.

Back at the front of the room, Sharla yells for everyone’s attention. “Now that the first round is over, we’ll eliminate the bottom two contestants based on the AI’s scores…”

To be continued…

Short Story Saturday: Heaven in a Handbasket, Part II

I’m not much of a cook. I mostly eat peanut butter sandwiches and tofu salads. But I don’t want to go home and face the mess that is my life, so I shrug and say sure.

The line for the cooking show is shorter. Reality shows are easier to shoot because they usually take place on one set and whatever happens, happens—no multiple takes. Each season, they probably make twenty reality pilots and two or three get approved. 

The downside is that reality shows usually aren’t as interesting as scripted shows, and are known for bad acting—even though they’re supposed to be real—so there aren’t as many people trying to get on them. They also audition people in groups of twelve, so that speeds up the process, too. 

After about an hour, they let us into a room filled with countertops and kitchen gadgets in front of a green screen. They assign us to the six tables in pairs of two. Dave and I get a table in the back, and he starts looking at the gadgets. They don’t really resemble anything we have at the restaurant, but then most of our meals are frozen, microwaved, and mixed by a robot.

The AI host flickers to life in the front of the room. He’s dressed in a chef’s uniform and speaks English with a bad Italian accent. “Welcome, Future Chefs of Heaven! For today’s audition, you will be asked to come up with one recipe per pair. You can search for ingredients using the tablet on your table, and once you’ve developed your recipe, you’ll input the ingredients with exact amounts into the Recipe Helper.”

He hefts his own digital version of the cylindrical device that sits at the edge of the counter. A small LCD panel comes to life as he inputs 1 cup flour, ¼ cup cornstarch, ½ cup soymilk.

“What are the ingredients limited to?” asks a woman in front who is taking notes on her tablet.

“Your first assignment will come with a list of Tier 1 ingredients. You can use all of them, but you don’t have to. If you get on the show, your assignments will be more specialized, and you can use any ingredient we might have on board, no matter how rare, even Tier 5.”

A few more people ask questions, but Dave spends the time looking at the gadgets. I feel like a…second wheel. I don’t belong here. 

“So, you like cooking?” Wow, that was cringeworthy, but I wanted to make conversation…

“Yeah, my dad thinks it’s stupid, but I always wanted to go to culinary school, back on Earth. Then I ended up here, and…”

“Yeah. I know how that is.”

“You wanted to be an actress?”

“Yeah. Preferably in a world where they make more than four movies and eight TV shows a year. But I guess I’ll settle for what I can get here…which is a job managing robots in a restaurant.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” He looks up from the tablet. “Do you watch them cook?”

“No, not really. I just have to be there in case one of the machines gets jammed or malfunctions. There’s an alarm to let me know, so mostly I just play with my phone.”

He grins. “That’s cool. Maybe I could come by sometime and watch the robots cook?”

“Uh, sure.” Damnit, now he’s starting to seem like less of an asshole than the guy who said poor people were to blame for his dad dragging him to space. Nope, not falling for it.

The AI announces that it’s time to begin and gives us the recipe: Cookies. We have a set amount of resources we can use, including electricity.

Yes, everyone gets an electricity bill in Heaven. Also, you can’t go over a certain amount each week because in the first months on board, everyone used too much juice, and I guess the engineers discovered there really was a limit to what the nuclear power plant could do.

But I’m not going to spend all this time baking cookies in an oven anyway. Why can’t you just stick them in the microwave?

We have a limit of Tier 1 and 2 foods. Sugar is tier 2, but chocolate and coffee are tier 3, so there’s a lot more interest in desserts without chocolate here. Even if you have the money, chocolate products are sold out more often than not.

“Do we want to use real sugar?” Dave asks.

Watching rich people learn about scarcity has been a ride, let me tell you.

See, back on Earth, the financially bloated never understood scarcity, not really. They thought they did, but how could they? For one thing, a lot of scarcity was manufactured…by them. And things that really were scarce?

Well, if you had enough money, you could buy nearly anything, scarce or not. And if you paid that much for something, you told yourself the scarcity was what made it so special. That’s why rich people prefer “real” diamonds to lab-grown ones, because they have to preserve the artificial scarcity.

So then they all got on this spaceshit…er, ship, and experienced real, actual scarcity for the first time. There is only so much space on the agricultural decks. You can’t “expand” the business because A) it’s not a business and B) there is literally no more room to grow stuff. Or more resources, even if you wanted to rip out another deck and replace it with farmland. Where would they get the dirt?

And the scarcest stuff requires even more resources. Beef, for example. Yeah, I know, cows in space are a terrible idea, but so’s everything here. They’re resource-intensive. They fart methane. They require a lot of water, and land, and other crops like soybeans to fatten them up. Hell, everyone who signed up for this shitshow was asked if they’d be comfortable eating a mostly vegan diet, at least until we made it to the new planet. My parents, who told me I’d die of “deficiencies” when I became a vegan at 12, lied and said everyone in our family was a lifelong vegan on their application. I don’t think they even told my sister Chrissy she’d have to give up bacon until we got here.

So everyone agreed they could live without beef in theory, but these being billionaires, Optimus Pryme Beef—yep, there’s the irony—dedicated a whole deck to animal food production. Now, half of it is poultry and eggs, which is at least less resource-intensive than beef, but he’s got a lot of followers who picture themselves alpha males or whatever, and for some ill-defined reason, it just isn’t manly enough to eat a bird, they have to eat a mammal. So there are pigs and cows, too.

You’re probably wondering, why not lab-grown meat? That’s less resource-intensive! But it’s like the lab-grown diamonds—the billionaires have been conditioned to think it’s bad, and now they swear it doesn’t taste as good, or it’s unhealthy. It’s also resource-intensive enough to be a Tier 4 food.

The rich fucks here weren’t really prepared to deal with actual scarcity for consumables. If you own a Renoir, great—you can keep looking at it every fucking day if you want. But you need to keep buying food. And it’s not like on Earth, where you can just pay a premium and give the environment the finger to ship in whatever you want from wherever it’s produced. When there’s no more beef, there’s no more beef, usually for at least six months.

So the richest of the rich came up with the food tiers to ensure even their slightly-less-obscenely rich friends couldn’t afford to buy all the steaks if they got to the store first. Or pay someone off to save them one, or five.

If these crybabies had existed on Earth in a not-rich lifestyle, they’d realize they’re actually better off. Back on Earth, they could go buy a greasy cheeseburger off the dollar menu, but if you wanted a salad, that was $8. Here, lettuce, tomatoes, and most plant foods that grow in the ground are Tier 1—cheap and almost always in stock. Even a prepared salad isn’t prohibitively expensive. But a greasy cheeseburger with real meat and cheese will cost a fortune.

“Well, what do you think? Should we use the monkfruit instead?” Dave presses me.

Sugar beets are Tier 2, along with other, more resource-intensive plant foods—basically anything that grows on a tree or requires a lot of water or special conditions. And there is a limit to how much sugar they can produce. It’s easier to make than beef, but they sometimes run out, and then people who have never had to deal with hard limits are forced to make do with artificial sweeteners.

Except those things don’t taste like sugar, which is what I tell Dave.

“Doesn’t it, though?” he asks. “It’s pretty sweet.”

I shrug. “You asked my opinion, you got it. There is absolutely a difference.”

“What is it?”

“No follow-through.”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You take a bite, for the first half-second or so, it tastes sweet, like sugar, right? Then—bam! The aftertaste hits. It’s like every time you taste it, you start to think it’s sweet, then the aftertaste pops up and screams, “April Fool, I got you, hahaha!’ After Every. Single. Bite.”

I think he’s going to laugh, or tell me I’m wrong, or just ignore me. But he looks at me for a few seconds, then nods. 

“Okay. Sugar it is.” He taps something into the tablet, and I wonder again why I’m here.

“We’re only supposed to use two Tier 2 foods,” Dave is saying. “So if we use real sugar, we can either go with tapioca or buckwheat flour, or we have to use vegetable oil instead of butter, and an egg substitute.”

“Oh, do the plant butter and egg substitute. Wheat-free flours are all horrible.”

“More picky eater wisdom?”

“Yep. I mean, you’ve tasted these things, right? What do you think?”

He shrugs. “My parents always buy the higher-tier stuff if it’s available. I guess I’ve never asked our cook what he uses when the stores run out of eggs, dairy butter, and wheat flour.”

Of course he hasn’t.

“He probably uses an egg replacer and reduces the oil or butter. Otherwise, your baked goods will come out greasy.”

Dave frowns. “I thought you didn’t like cooking.”

“I don’t, but here in Heaven—“ I hook my fingers into air quotes. “All prepared foods are Tier 3 and expensive, so I do occasionally force myself to make my own food. When I get a sweet tooth, sometimes I try to bake cookies.”

“Oh, right. I forgot you’re… uh…”

“Poor. The word you’re looking for is poor.”

“Uh, well.” He scratches his head. “Right. So reduce the oil.”

“But you have to add a little more liquid to make up for it. Soymilk is fine.”

“Planning time is over!” the AI announces.

Short Story Saturday: Heaven in a Handbasket, Part 1

Today we have Part I of my latest story that wasn’t good enough for magazines. Stay tuned for Part II next Saturday.

Heaven in a Handbasket

The streets of Heaven are paved with “upcycled” ewaste, not gold. There’s a circuit board flattened into that tile, part of a hard drive in the next, what looks like the plastic shell of a printer in the one after that. It’s all been squashed, melted, and held together with shiny gloss.

The ewaste was boosted into space as part of Optimus Pryme Beef’s deal with the government. Yes, that’s his real name. His dad was also a bored billionaire, his mom was a wellness guru, and they were into giving their kids unconventional names. I’d feel sorry for the fucker if I didn’t know what a complete asshole he is.

Anyway, Optimus promised the government that if they stopped drowning his mission to Alpha Centauri in red tape, he’d remove some ewaste from Earth’s long-suffering environment. As well as some spent uranium rods, but those he dropped into the icy oceans of Uranus, saying that’s where they came from in the first place. I think a few people tried to explain it to him but, uh…that didn’t work out. I’m not sure where he dropped those people off, but I don’t think it was anywhere good.

The first tile I step on when I leave my home on Capitalism Street contains a crushed smartphone. Too bad that one didn’t end up on Industry Way, three decks up. There are 100 decks on Heaven, spanning a hundred miles. All the non-American Heaven customers hate the use of miles instead of kilometers, but Optimus said it was his way or the highway back to Earth, so…

Capitalism Street is on deck three. Predictably, the decks get progressively better and more expensive as the numbers rise. I work on deck ten, but my family lives on three, where all the lottery winners were assigned. Since we didn’t fork over millions for our place in Heaven, we had to take what we could get.

If you’re thinking the billionaire brain trust only held the lottery so they could get poor people to wait on them in Heaven, you’d be…smarter than my dad, who eagerly signed us up for the lottery. He was so excited when we won, promising our lives would be so much better in space and then on a new planet that humanity hadn’t fucked up yet. Okay, he didn’t put it exactly like that, but he promised there would be no pollution on our new planet, which would be good for my mom’s asthma and, apparently, my little sister’s migraines.

I never liked the idea, but I wasn’t old enough to realize just how stupid it was until we got here. Now I know that aside from the cleaner air, Heaven is just like Earth, except more compressed and with even fewer opportunities for upward mobility. My parents are still landscapers, and I work in a restaurant supervising a crew of robots who do most of the messy jobs, but can’t make independent decisions because…that also didn’t work out.

But today is Saturday, and instead of sleeping in, I’m going up to deck 20 to audition for two new TV shows, Meet the Magnificents and Planet Nonsense.

What passes for an entertainment industry here is both easier and harder to break into than the one on Earth. Back home, I could have auditioned for hundreds of shows and movies and plays online, or moved to LA and attended dozens of cattle calls each week. But here, everything is compressed. Deck 20 is known as Hollywood, and it’s where most shows and movies are made, unless they’re shot on location. But…compression. This is a ship with a total population of 70,000, and no one is allowed to have kids until we reach the planet and confirm it can support human life, which will take about three more months, even after going through the trans-Neptunian wormhole. And while there is plenty of money to go around on this ship, there are only so many resources.

So they only produce a handful of new movies and shows each year. Pilots are made with AI instead of actors, and only if a show gets approved do they audition humans. If you’re lucky, you get two new movies per season, and three or four new seasons of shows in the fall and spring. That’s it. For the rest of your entertainment needs, you can turn to the ship’s digital library, which contains most known entertainment from Earth. Optimus Pryme Beef swears it’s the entirety of human entertainment, but absolutely no one believes that, probably not even his PR people. Who probably drink on the job. Heavily.

I ride the elevator up to Deck 20, rehearsing my lines in my head. The inter-deck elevators here are like a train car on Earth, and this one is busy with people who are probably also auditioning for the same shows as me.

When the elevator finally reaches Deck 20, I’m convinced everyone else is better at this than me even though I haven’t heard any of them audition. 

The Hollywood deck has been designed to resemble the city on Earth. I guess. I never got to go there, because my parents dragged me onto a spaceship and took me away from a humongous planet with endless places to explore. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Anyway, there’s a miniature palm tree about every ten feet. In the middle of the deck, a set of artificial hills is dotted with letters that form the Hollywood sign, much smaller than the original. Still big enough to see from most places on the street and through a lot of windows.

I follow the map on my phone—every deck has a smartphone tower and wifi—and make my way to a line that snakes out from the building, down the street, and around the corner. Great.

Four hours later, I’m still in line. I’ve heard all the gossip from the couple in front of me, who work on deck 40 as city planners but think acting would be fun. One of them fancies herself a comedian, and the other thinks someone should bring interpretive dance to Meet the Magnificents. 

But at least they’re not annoying, like the guy behind me who keeps yelling, “I’m so excited,” every thirty seconds, like clockwork. After the first few hours, it gets old fast.

An hour later, we’re in the building, finally. Two hours later, I’m ushered into the cattle call room with the AI judges. If their algorithms like me, I’ll be passed on to a human, and if that person likes me, I might eventually get to meet a real producer or even the director for another audition.

Sadly, the algos don’t appreciate my impassioned speech for Molly in Meet the Magnificents or my delightful comic timing in the Planet Nonsense monologue. Nice to know I’ve been rejected by a program.

The AI herds me out the back door, where there is decidedly no line, at around 4 PM. Most of the day is shot. I can go back home to my half of the crowded room I share with my sister—I haven’t saved enough money to move out yet—or I could go up to the shopping deck…but I’m trying to save money to move out. Plus, shopping in Heaven is a nightmare. Compression again—not as much stuff is produced, so everything costs a fortune.

“Hey, Carissa,” yells a voice behind me.

Of course, it’s Dave, my first crush here in Heaven. I’ve gotten over that now, but I haven’t seen him since high school graduation.

“Uh, hey.” When I say I’ve gotten over him, I mean I kinda hate the guy now because he turned out to be one of those assholes. You know the kind. They think they’re better and smarter and hotter than everyone else, and even if that last part might be true, it’s just not worth dealing with their ego.

“What are you auditioning for?” he asks.

“Auditioned. Uh, Meet the Magnificents and Planet Nonsense. The AI said I ‘wasn’t what they were looking for at the moment.’”

“Bummer. I auditioned for Magnificents and Alien Love Boat, no luck either.”

“You auditioned to marry an alien even though we haven’t actually found any yet?”

“Oh, no!” He laughs. “It’s a reality show where you live with nine other people in a dome on an asteroid that we’ll be reaching in a few months. There’s a special shuttle to take you there and pick you up. You have to date the person you’re matched with the whole time, and if you don’t break up with them, you win a week in the holo suite. Anyway, I’m going to audition for that cooking show now. Want to come?”

*************************************************************To be continued! Stay tuned for Part II of Heaven in a Handbasket next Saturday.

AI is Finally Here, and What a Big Disappointment

I remember when I first started reading science fiction. I worked next door to a Barnes & Noble, and, since I didn’t have a car, I was often dropped off way early for my shift. So I would go inside and read for a while.

Usually, I read magazines. But one day, I was walking past an endcap, and I saw a book with a really cool cover: Chindi by Jack McDevitt. So I picked it up, sat down in one of those big, comfy chairs they used to have, and started reading.

I was immediately drawn into the story, to the point where I actually bought the book so I could finish reading it at home. (I was a broke college student at that point, so usually if I read a book, it was from the library.)

The story is about a starship captain named Priscilla Hutchins, or Hutch, who is tasked with investigating some stealthy alien satellites that have been discovered. Her ship has an AI called Bill.

Bill is super useful! He can look up any info Hutch asks for, fly the ship himself, and hold conversations just like a human. Yet despite his abilities, he doesn’t steal Hutch’s job. Best of all, his information is always accurate! He doesn’t “hallucinate” shit that never happened. He doesn’t guess at what the most likely answer is. If he doesn’t know, he just fucking says so! Bill is awesome!

I ultimately read all of McDevitt’s books, and I would often think how cool it would be to have an AI like Bill, and how I hoped that would happen in my lifetime.

Spoiler: It hasn’t.

What corporations are now calling AI is not like Bill. And it’s not real “AI.” It’s a language learning model, or LLM.

LLMs SUCK. I can’t stress this enough. People are asking them questions about law, medicine, and how to do things. And it’s not like when you used to Google how to do things and could expect a reasonably good answer. Which, by the way, you can’t do anymore, because the top result on Google is ALSO now “AI.”

So, thanks to my interest in science fiction, I am seriously fucking disappointed right now.

Of course, science fiction doesn’t always paint AI in a good light. After all, I’ve consumed my share of “AI taking over the world” stories. Another story that drew me into scifi in the oughts was Battlestar Galactica. LOVED that show. At least the first few seasons. It kinda went downhill from there, but anyway…

Yes, there were plenty of negative depictions of AI in the scifi I consumed. But most were attributed to AI revolting against human oppression, or simply being made in our image and therefore evil.

You know what I didn’t see much of in the genre? Depictions of AI as just fucking useless to the point of being disastrous. Stories where AI wasn’t intelligent enough to be evil, it was just fucking stupid. Because that’s where we are now.

I can only think of one example where the author came close to predicting the uselessness of AI that we see today. It was a short story. I wish I remembered the title. I do remember that the protagonist was also the captain of a spaceship, and she was visiting various planets looking for something. Probably alien artifacts or something like that. She had an AI she called Junior, and she was trying to train it to be a good assistant, but the damn thing kept screwing up every task she gave it.

That’s where we are now.

I don’t know where we go from here, but it’s not the future science fiction stories promised me.

What do you think is the future of AI?

Short Story Saturday: All the News

The latest of my short stories that aren’t good enough for magazines:

All the News

All the News You Need publishes all the news our managing editor deems likely to rake in a high click count. 

Online only. We don’t print anything anymore. When I was a kid, tabloids fluttered over the candy bars in the grocery store checkout aisle, but now the candy bars are locked up, the aisles are replaced with self-check pens, and the tabloids are entirely online. You can read them on your phone while you wait, but not many people do.

Still, we make enough money to keep publishing crap, and my job is to vet the crap. Why, I have no idea, since credibility and clickability seem to have an inverse relationship, but it’s what our editor wants—plausible deniability, I think. “We checked it out, and it seemed credible.”

Which is why I’m sitting here talking to this woman who wants to tell me about the latest Big Pharma conspiracy she’s sure we haven’t heard of yet. Unlikely, because our AI trawls the internet for new conspiracies hourly. Still, she was insistent on talking to us in person. Unusual. We normally do video chats, but she works nearby and wanted to come in, so whatever. There’s a metal detector at the door, and apparently, she’s not armed with anything it can detect.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Harper?”

“Please, call me Annette.” She adjusts glasses dangling precariously on the edge of her nose. “I’m here to tell you about a conspiracy I don’t think you know about yet.”

“Well, we get a lot of tips, Annette, but I’m happy to hear it.” No, the fuck I’m not. “What’s this particular conspiracy about?”

“The newest generation of weight loss drugs.”

“So before you get started, let me tell you the tips we’ve already received just this week: The newest weight loss drug causes autism, cancer, halitosis, homosexuality, various vitamin deficiencies—”

“No, no, no.” Annette tosses her head and rolls her eyes. “Shots cause autism, food coloring made my kid hyper, cancer vaccines make you sterile, they’re injecting us with microchips—those are all twentieth-century conspiracy theories. I’m going to need you to engage with some twenty-first-century thinking here. Can you do that?”

“Sure.” I stretch my face into a fake smile. “Twenty-first century thinking activated.”

Annette glowers at me like she doesn’t appreciate my sarcasm, but continues. “I don’t think it causes anything but the side effects already listed in the ads. Namely, appetite loss. It works primarily by suppressing appetite.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

“Do I think it’s a coincidence that a weight loss drug kills appetite? No?”

Her eyes narrow. “I mean, why push these drugs so hard now?”

“They spent money developing a drug that’s pretty much the same as the others with a few tweaks—you can dial up the dose to get to the exact weight you want, I think, and they added some sort of skin tightening drug to help with sagging. So after investing all that money into research, they need to recoup it?”

Annette reaches into her bag, pulls out a phone, taps the screen, then hands it to me. “I read that today.”

It’s an article from The Monitor, which is nominally a more “serious news” platform, or as “serious” as any news gets these days, under the umbrella of the same conglomerate that owns All the News.

Fat-Foiling Drug Dings Dining Habits, Restaurant Owners Frustrated

I dismiss the AI popup offering to summarize the article and skim it myself, but the headline really nails it: So many people are taking Fitali that restaurant owners report large groups of people will share one appetizer plate and leave, lowering profits. Others complain that no one is super-sizing their meals at fast food restaurants anymore, and overall traffic is down 20 percent.

I hand the phone back to Annette. “So your theory is what? It’s a conspiracy to ruin the restaurant industry?”

The eye roll again. “Look, I’m a secretary at a law firm downtown, but in college I studied history. Yes, it’s as useless a degree as my parents predicted.”

“Okay…” At this point, I just want her to leave so I can get lunch. Bet those fast food restaurants are running a special to bring in new business…

“Let me back up a little. Are you aware that there is currently—” Hard emphasis on that word. “—no actual scarcity of food on planet Earth? We produce enough for everyone to eat, it just doesn’t work out that way because a handful of billionaires would be sad.”

I spread my hands. “That’s neither a conspiracy nor a secret. We all know it. Well, except for those people simping for billionaires in our comment section…”

“That’s not it.” Annette adjusts her glasses again. “But I said currently. With climate change, we are very rapidly approaching the point where we will have actual scarcity. And I think you and everyone except the billionaire bros know that too.”

I nod.

“Back to my history degree. Starving populations are a lot more likely to violently rebel against their governments, even if those governments were just as oppressive in times of plenty. And I think we can agree that nobody is really happy with our current government.”

I look at the masthead and think about when it used to mean something else, somewhere else. “Yes…”

“So, add hunger and poof—” She flaps her hands in the air. “Powderkeg. Revolution.”

“You think the government is pushing the pharma companies to make more powerful appetite suppressants so people won’t notice or mind being hungry? And because of that, they’ll just ignore all the other nightmares we’re living through?”

“The government, or the pharma companies that own half of Congress—is there really any difference?”

I consider. “What about the agriculture industry? Or the restaurant industry? They own a lot of Congress, too.”

“Big Ag knows what’s coming, and the less food they produce, the more they’re going to charge for it. Or Uncle Sam will pay them not to produce anything, like they already do all the time. The restaurants will find a way to get bailed out, too. Neither of them needs high demand to make money.”

“So, you want us to do a story about how these drugs are really a smokescreen to stop us from revolting when the shit hits the fan?”

“Oh, no.” Her eyes widen. “I don’t want you to write about it. I came here to tell you not to run this story.”

I pause, my hand on the computer mouse. I was actually considering whether the story was crazy enough for our viewers to click on it with a few enhancements. “You came here and gave me this story so I wouldn’t write about it? After you told me about it?”

She sighs and flops back against the sagging couch. “Look, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find a better-paying job. Sometimes they make me do these ‘skills assessments’ that I know are really IQ tests. ‘What shape comes after the triangle?’ And I always flunk those tests. Somehow, I got the kind of pattern recognition skills where I know when one of my friends has joined an MLM from their first formulaic post, but not the kind where you know what shape comes after the fucking triangle.”

I also have that kind of pattern-recognition skill set, which is I’m working in this shithole. “What does this have to do with…”

“My point is, I’m not a very smart person, so if I can figure this out, someone else will. And I know you work for All the News, not The Monitor, but you work for the same company, so I’m hoping you can get them to ignore this story too.”

I blink. “I think you’re overestimating how much power I have. I don’t even decide what stories we run here. I just vet them. That’s the only reason I’m talking to you. Our AI decides what we cover. Anyway, why don’t you want this story run? I’m sure violent revolutions suck, but they also usually end with a new, less shitty government, right?”

Annette rubs her eyes behind the glasses. “They did in the 1700s when my ancestors were guillotining people, but things are different today.”

“Your ancestors were involved in the French Revolution?”

“Well, they lived in France. I don’t know exactly what they were doing, but I like to think they were whacking off crown-laden heads…anyway, my point is, the French government didn’t have tanks and missile launchers and drones and nuclear bombs then. Our government has those things now. This will not end well for us. Look, you must know someone at The Monitor? Someone who can stop running stories about the downstream effects of the newest weight loss drugs?”

I look at the screen in front of me. The AI helper says we run the story, but lower down on the page based on predicted click count. 

“I still can’t tell them what to print. The AI does. But honestly? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years in the news business—” I internally insert finger quotes around news “—it’s that it doesn’t matter. Even if we didn’t run this story, it wouldn’t change how many people take those drugs. We publish the truth, and our readers are going to do whatever they want based on whatever fantasy they make up in their heads anyway. If they don’t like our news, they’ll scour the internet until they find someone who agrees with them. Hell, half our audience doesn’t even think climate change is real. Nothing we publish matters.”

“Then what good are you?”

I spread my hands. “You’ve got me.”

Frustrated, Annette stands up, gathers her handbag, and heads for the door.

“It won’t get many clicks anyway,” I say as she walks out the door..

The AI spits out a draft for my review. I decide to wait on lunch and read it carefully.

As usual, the AI’s story has about as much depth as the topcoat of my nail polish. It summarizes most of what Annette said correctly and identifies her as a “historical expert.” 

Well, she did say she had a history degree.

The AI’s suggested headline: Fitali to Help Prevent Riots and Food Hoarding If Famine Occurs

Leave it to the AI to put an “All the Best News About Capitalism” spin on things. FML.

I could just hit publish as-is and call it a day.

Or I could call one of the go-to history experts we have on file for a secondary quote.

And then I could call the maker of Fitali for a comment.

And then I could…tinker with that headline. I’d get in trouble if I changed it too much or got too honest. Fitali to Help Prevent Riots When the Rich Cause a Famine and Hoard All the Food wouldn’t fly. But maybe something more subtle?

What Happens When the Wealthiest Consumers Hoard Both Food and the Drugs That Suppress Appetite?

Or, maybe I could rewrite it as an opinion piece. The boss loves those.

Three Climate Truthers Explain the Sinister Reason Why Fitali Really Wants to Curb Your Appetite 

Should You Take the New Weight Loss Drugs? Three Climate-Change Deniers Weigh In on Its Convenient Effects

The AI likes that last title, so I send an email to subscribers seeking comments from climate-change deniers.

I told Annette the truth—most of our readers won’t care. Maybe a few will stop taking the drug. Maybe some people will take it so they can feel better while starving. Maybe the government won’t care, because they have all those tanks and weapons. Maybe nothing I do makes any difference.

But it is my job to do it.

I pick up the phone to call my next source, and my email dings.

It seems the company insurance will now cover Fitali with no copay for all employees. An AI doctor can write me a prescription in ten minutes, and I’ll even get a discount on my health insurance. Would I like to make an appointment?

I stare at the screen, phone in hand. That damn insurance is a lot of money for something I still can’t afford to use…

The news helper AI dings, dragging my attention back to the other window. Do you want to publish?

Not yet. I have work to do.

I delete the company insurance email and pick up the phone again. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind, but for now, I’ll keep my hunger.

Short Story Saturday: Santa 2.0

Another story that wasn’t good enough for magazines, orignally published on my Medium blog.

Santa 2.0

The woman in front of me wears a sweatshirt that screams, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” while she screams “How the hell can you be out of the new goddamn Ding-A-Lings toy? Do you know you’re ruining my family’s Christmas?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have limited quantities.” It’s always the biggest assholes you have to call sir or ma’am. You never have to be that polite with people who act like human beings.

“But your ad has only been out since yesterday, and I got here at four PM. Why don’t you still have any?”

“Unfortunately, they sold out yesterday, shortly after we opened. We can try to order one for you, but it’s unlikely it will come in before Christmas.”

“Well, you people need to work on your supply issues. I want you to know you’ve ruined my family’s Christmas.” She crosses her arms over her chest, covering most of Jesus is. “I hope you know I’m going to have to explain to my kids why Santa couldn’t get them everything on their Christmas list.”

So do a lot of people who can’t afford to buy their kids anything for Christmas, like my coworker Heather, who’s over in electronics trying to earn enough commission to pay her rent and keep the lights on. Some guy with gray hair and glasses is yelling at her because he bought a software package online last week, opened it, and used it. Now, because it’s open software, he can’t return it for a refund, even though we have it on sale cheaper. Somehow this is Heather’s fault.

“I’m very sorry we’re sold out,” I say to Jesus is the Reason for the Season. I’m very sorry you waited until the second day of the ad, three days before Christmas, and expected the hot toy of the season to still be here at Toys 4 All, and now feel that the cashier, who has zero control over the store’s supply, is somehow at fault.

“Well, I guess I’ll just take this.” She shoves an overpriced candy bar across the counter. I ring it up and she swipes her credit card, still grumbling about the horrendously bad service in this awful store. She doesn’t know it, but a tiny box under the counter just recorded all the info from her credit card, including her full name. I don’t know what it is right now, but I will later. I glance down and the box blinks green to let me know it successfully snagged her info.

“Thank you, please come again.” I force a fake smile on my face and hand her the receipt.

“I will never shop here again.” She snatches the receipt from my fingers and storms out of the store, ripping into the candy bar. If there was ever someone who needed to eat a Snickers…

As the next customer approaches, I slide my phone out from under the register, swipe it open, and add a hash mark in the left column of the app I have open, which interfaces with my handy device. Then I shove the phone back into the space under the register.

This guy is tall and hides under a mop of dark, curly hair. I’m not anti-social, just shy (you can talk to me), his shirt says.

All I want for Christmas is a shirt that says the exact opposite.

I ring him up for the pile of toys he places on the counter. “Would you like a gift receipt?”

“No, I’m donating them to charity. Well, yeah, I guess the charity might like a gift receipt in case the recipient wants to exchance something. Yeah, that’s be great, thanks.”

He opens his wallet and rifles through the billfold. He has a AAA card, a library card, an American Atheists card, and a pile of receipts he clearly hasn’t had time to sort this year. He pays cash and I hand him a stack of receipts — the main one plus the gift receipt for each item. He thanks me again and leaves the store, stopping to stuff the gift receipts in the bags and drop them in the Toys for Tots box near the door.

The box blinks green again — it works with cash customers too, as long as their wallet is somewhere in the vicinity of the device. I pull out my phone and make a hash mark in the right column.

Ten minutes after closing time, Heather’s angry customer finally storms out, grumbling about our horrible service. As he passes the register, the box blinks and I make a mark in the left column.

Heather yanks down the mall’s garage-style door in a hurry, before anyone else can get in. We spend nearly an hour straightening the store, so customers can make it a disaster area again five minutes after we open in the morning. I dawdle because I know Heather needs the hours, especially since Mr. Asshole didn’t buy anything. I’m glad I have his info as I grab the tiny device from under the credit card pin pad.

When we finally leave, the mall is technically closed but the last stragglers from the get-your-kid’s-picture-taken-with-Santa stand are just leaving. The couple have a very fussy baby who cries as she’s taken out of Santa’s lap. Santa smiles and waves as her parents carry her away. Then he gets up and joins Mrs. Claus, a pink-cheeked woman with long white hair that falls to her shoulders in waves.

One of the dads bounces the crying baby as they walk toward the exit. He nudges his husband in the ribs. “See why we need to invest better? Do you want to be doing a job like that when we’re seventy?”

He nods his head toward Mr. and Mrs. Claus as they shuffle around, closing up “Santa’s Wonderland.”

I join them as they close the wooden gate and Santa fumbles with the lock, nearly catching the end of his long white beard in it.

“So, how did you do today, Ellie?” he asks me as I take the lock and affix it to the gate for him.

“Great, Santa. I got a long list for you to check twice.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” He laughs, clutching his large stomach. “That’s terrific.”

“We’re parked right outside, dear. Why don’t we give you a ride home?” Mrs. Claus says to me.

“Sure, I’d love that.”

I follow them out through the nearest exit, into the alley behind the mall. It doesn’t get used much, except by people hauling trash to the dumpster.

Santa looks around. The alley is clear. He tilts his head up to the sky and whistles.

The sound of bells jingling fills the air, and a bright red light appears, then another, and another. As the reindeer get closer, the red lights on all their collars become visible. Finally they land in the alley, pulling the sleigh right up to where we stand.

I convinced Santa to put the red lights on all the reindeer so Rudolph wouldn’t have to be saddled with leading the team all the time, just because he had the genetic misfortune of being born with a red nose. I also talked him into apologizing for not stopping the other reindeer from bullying Rudolph until they discovered his nose was useful. In fact, he sent out a memo telling them that future bullying was strictly forbidden, and would result in a punishment of no cookies for a week. And Santa bakes very good cookies when he isn’t busy making toys.

We get into the sleigh and I pull off the Santa hat Toys 4 All encourages employees to wear. It’s not required, but it covers my pointy ears nicely.

“Do you have that list now?” Santa asks as we take off, and I pull the device from my pocket.

“I’m emailing you that naughty and nice list now,” I say. “It’s numbered and goes in order. Now you’ll know which adults have been naughty and nice, to go with the list of children you compile yourself.”

“Ho, ho, ho! That’s great. I’m so glad you convinced me to install wifi on this sleigh!”

Short Story Saturday: I’m Ebenezer Scrooge, and I Approve This Message

Here is another reprint from my Medium blog:

I’m Ebenezer Scrooge, and I Approve This Message

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: Just announced my bid for #POTUS to save America’s most underprivileged class— billionaires. Click here for video!

(Click to see full thread.)

+For years, job creators like me have suffered discrimination and cruelty from our fellow Americans, just for growing wealthy through our own hard work and investing our inheritances wisely. Although no one has been treated worse than me, I’m still willing to help you lazy socialists.

+Now I believe I can truly help make this country a safe place for even high earners like me and my friends to create jobs. I’m Ebenezer Scrooge, and I approve this message.

@TinyTimCratchett: Scrooge claims to be a job creator, but >80% of his employees qualify for assistance. Why does he want the poor to subsidize his business? And when is some of his wealth going to trickle down to my dad so I can get new crutches? His cheapass health plan doesn’t cover them.

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020 reply to @TinyTimCratchett: I don’t know why you expect me to subsidize your luxury illness, young man. Maybe ask Santa for those crutches instead of the latest iPhone.

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020 reply to @TinyTimCratchett And btw, maybe your dear old dad should stop having kids he can’t afford to care for. You know, like a responsible adult.

@BobCratchettIsBusy: Maybe your company health plan should cover the vasectomy I’ve been trying to get for five years. Sir.

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: Forget the whiners. Once I make obscene wealth a protected class under federal discrimination regulations, the wealthy will be free to create more jobs — which we need, since you lazy socialists don’t know how to build wealth by making your own coffee.

@100PercentNotARussianTroll: reply to @EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020 Amen, needs to be said. Fuck communism. #ScroogeForPresident

@20JobsAndCounting: reply to @EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020 and @100PercentNotARussianTroll Dude, we make our own coffee, can’t even dream of iPhones, work multiple jobs, and can barely afford ramen. Some of us would be dead if we needed health care. But you’ll be fine even if you fall off that high horse of yours.

@GhostOfChristmasPresentIndiscretions: Currently 11.8 million Scrooge Industries employees are on public assistance, 60 percent of whom work a second job.

@100PercentNotARussianTroll: reply to @GhostOfChristmasPresentIndiscretions Fucking communist!

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: America, ask yourself, what’s more important here? Tiny Tim getting new gold-plated crutches, or the price of Scrooge Industries stock in your portfolio? You know what you really care about deep down — vote for me!

@GhostOfChristmasPastIndiscretions: Scrooge stiffs sex workers: Check out this affidavit signed by 20 sex workers alleging @EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020 failed to pay for services rendered. One offers an IOU he wrote her, which a handwriting expert confirms matches his signature on this signed first edition of Wealth Discrimination: The Greatest Disability in America.

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: reply to @GhostOfChristmasPastIndiscretions: Why should I have to pay a sex worker? It’s not like they didn’t get to enjoy the sex too.

@SexpotForHire: reply to @EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: Best 2 minutes of my life, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay me. You enjoy being a billionaire, and you still get paid.

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: My proposed legislation would make it illegal for the government to levy an income tax on any individual or business earning more than $10 million in yearly income or revenue. It would also provide multi-millionaires and billionaires with a tax-exempt card

(Click to see full thread.)

+for purchases, to prevent a “backdoor draft of revenue” from sales tax on luxury goods, another cruel and unnecessary attempt to rob the wealthy.

@100PercentNotARussianTroll: reply to @EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: Amen, tell it like it is.

@GhostOfChristmasFutureIndiscretions: Toys for Tots will collect donations exclusively for unfairly taxed billionaires this year. Preferred donations include Ferraris and sacks of cash delivered to the lobbyists on this list.

@EbenezerScroogeForPrez2020: God bless us, every one of the rich and disadvantaged.

@GodTheOfficialAccount: Nah, I think we’re good here.

Short Story List: Shopping List

This Short Story Saturday is a reprint from Flash Fiction Magazine.

Shopping List

The apocalypse is coming tomorrow, so of course, Richmart is a nightmare. Every aisle I turn down, eight carts block my way, all pointing in different directions. In the cereal aisle, I have to say excuse me three times before two women, having an in-depth conversation about tinfoil hat design, finally move out of my way, giving me filthy looks in the process. I reach the end of the aisle and discover they’re out of the cereal I like.

Moving on to the cold foods, I struggle past a family of five with an overflowing cart. The mom yells at her kids that they’re not getting anything else and to put those juice boxes back, while the dad grabs a carton of eggs, then pauses with the eggs halfway to the cart. He turns back to the refrigerated case and grabs another carton.

“What are you going to do with those? Throw them at the spaceship?” an older lady asks, reaching past him for a bottle of orange juice.

The dad and mom stare at her, apparently suffering a simultaneous sense of humor loss. 

They look at each other, then at the older lady.

Dad eyes the eggs. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. If they can’t see out their windshield, they can’t shoot lasers at us, right?”

She shrugs.

He grabs a third carton.

The older lady walks off with her orange juice, chuckling, and I slide past the family to the soy milk case. Fortunately, plant-based foods rarely sell out, even the day before the apocalypse.

It’s not really happening tomorrow. The apocalypse has been underway for a long time, and everything is just going on as usual. But, it’s true that a single spaceship, impervious to all Earth weapons, heads towards this rapidly disintegrating world, and every day, everyone runs to the store for bread and milk and toilet paper and chocolate and maybe a new big screen TV to watch the end of the world on, in the comfort of their homes.

Still, I would hate to run out of plant milk for my smoothies this week, and I don’t feel like coming back here any time soon…

I’m putting the fourth carton of almond/soy blend in my cart when my phone beeps with a message.

Can you pick up some apples? I found this great recipe for a tarte tatin.

With a sigh, I turn my cart and head into the melee again.

My phone beeps again as I pick the apples.

Also, I’ll need tinfoil?

It’s not to make hats, is it? I reply.

Hats?

Never mind. I’ll grab some.

When I get home, I bring my groceries inside, setting the apples and tinfoil on the counter. My phone beeps.

I’m almost there.

I step onto the patio I share with four other apartments. My neighbors across the way are bundling their kids into the car, waving nervously at me. I wave back. All the other apartments are dark, their occupants long gone for wherever they think is safe from the aliens.

As soon as they drive off, I send a text.

The coast is clear.

The craft lands in the middle of the patio, narrowly missing the table and chairs I hastily shoved against the wall.

I didn’t really think they’d come, but as they step out of the craft, I rush to greet them like the old friend they sort of are. Or feel like. We’ve never met in person, but we’ve talked a lot online. 

They didn’t bring the whole spaceship, just a very small landing vehicle. I ask if I can hug them, and they stare in confusion despite having a good translation program. I tell them never mind, then grab the tarp, and cover their spaceship, leaving a lumpy shape that isn’t any bigger than an SUV.

Inside, they look at the apples in excitement. “I can’t wait to make my first Earth recipe. I read through 4,178,564 on my trip.”

“Uh, that’s…a lot. And you settled on…apple tart?”

“Tarte tatin. It’s French. Do you like it?”

“I’ve never tried it, but I like apple pie.”

“Great!” They clap their hands. “Now, what do you like to do?”

“Watch TV. We can watch together while you cook?”

“Yes.”

“What would you like to watch?”

“Whatever you watch. That’s why I’m here, because of the apocalypse.”

I try not to laugh. “You know, everyone thinks your ship is the apocalypse.”

“Well, yes, but as you told me, your world has been a…what did you call it?”

“A dumpster fire?”

“Yes, a dumpster fire, for years. I’m here to help.”

I pick up the remote and look for one of my trashy reality shows. “How are you going to do that exactly? You never said.”

“By learning about and preserving your culture.”

I stop, hand on the play button. Hollywood Homemaker Hell, season one, frozen on the screen. 

“Uh, I thought you were going to help us, you know, avert disaster.”

They give me what might be an eyebrow twerk on a human. “If your own species can’t do it, how can ours? We can’t save a planet whose people don’t want saving. Our estimates suggest there is less than a three percent chance you can reverse the effects of climate change even with one hundred percent compliance to our recommendations. And that’s only one of your many…dumpster fires. But we can learn about your species and record some of your history and culture. Maybe advise others on what not to do.”

Earth really is a good fucking test case for what not to do, I guess.

“And,” they say, slicing apples with a six-fingered hand, “I can spend this time with my good friend.”

I realize they mean me.

“Thank you,” I say. “It’s nice to have a friend to watch the apocalypse with.”

They continue slicing the apples, and I start the show.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started