Chapter Fifty - Salad

“It’s not just fine dining that changed with the arrival of the Antithesis. The first incursions popularized the purchase of long-lasting non-perishables, for good reason, but that had little impact on the world-wide market for food.

The biggest change appeared in 2023, during the central-Brazilian incursion. An incursion with few civilian dead, but one that landed quite close to some of the country’s largest agricultural areas.

Nearly one-hundred million heads of cattle perished during, or shortly after, the incursion, and with fears about possible biological weapons around incursion zones, the world-wide market for beef took a large downturn.

Shortly thereafter, large food conglomerates switched to using synthetic meats in full, something that had only been experimented with before that.“

--Except from You Aren’t What You Eat, 2032

***

Lucy ate her salad while making these little noises that were--quite frankly--making me a bit jealous. I’d never heard her sounding so... pleased before. Ever.

Was I being outdone by a salad?

“This is so fucking good,” she said, mouth still full. “How’s your thing?”

I looked down at my plate and at the seven circles spread out across it. Each one had a little piece of meat, with some sauce expertly drizzled on it, and a little side of vegetables or greens or... stuff. I’d eaten one of them so far, a sort of slab of pork that was so soft that it came apart as soon as my fork (which was in fact silver) touched it. The other six were all different, but for the most part each was pretty small. “It’s good so far,” I said as I turned the large plate a little bit.

“This isn’t even the main course and I’m loving it,” Lucy said. “It was a good idea to come here. Cat, you need to find out if this place would sponsor you so that we can eat this every day.”

I snorted. “I don’t know, it sounds like a bit of work. Won’t the fun wear off?”

“Sex is a lot of work, but it’s never worn off, I can’t see how this is any different,” Lucy said.

“Should I be worried?” I asked. “You and that salad...”

Lucy nodded. “You should be. If this salad had an ass as nice as yours... well, sometimes a girl has to make difficult choices in life.”

I was being outdone by a salad. That was effeminating.

I jabbed at some sort of brown meat. There was no way to know what it was, but it was juicy and soft and tasted stupidly good. “Mmm,” I started to say before I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “So, you think I should do the sponsor thing?”

Lucy tilted her head as she considered it. “I guess? Isn’t that what samurai do?”

“I mean, some of them have to be sponsor-less,” I said.

She shrugged. “I guess. Just figured that’s the way you’d go. It’s basically free money, right?”

“Yeah. Don’t know who I’d accept as a sponsor though. I wouldn’t just slap on anyone’s logo.”

“Can you imagine doing a commercial for like, Pear headphones, and then the week after you learn that they’re using child labour again,” Lucy said. “Oh, which company was it that had concentration camps with like, minorities working in factories?”

“There’s like, six,” I said.

“Urgh,” Lucy said. “Right, so you don’t want to work for one of those. Probably get Myalis to look into whatever corp you end up working with.”

I grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t want my face on a cereal box. Or like, someone’s underwear or something. It’s too cringey.”

Lucy giggled. “I love you Cat, but I wouldn’t wear you-themed panties, no matter how much you paid me.”

“I know,” I said. “Maybe like... uh, I hate myself for thinking this.”

“Ohh,” Lucy cooed. She leaned forwards. “Tell me, tell me!”

I rubbed at my brow. “I could be sponsored by one of those companies that do animal products.”

It took a moment for Lucy to catch on. “Oh, like a cat food company?”

“Not cat food! Shit, that’s worse than having your face on cereal.”

Lucy grinned. “Give your kitty some Cat, the best tasting pussy food around.”

I flung a napkin at her and she laughed. “You’re awful,” I said. “That wasn’t even a double-entendre. It was like... a single-entendre.”

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“It’s the salad.” Lucy took another bite. “It’s making me feel things I’ve never felt before.”

I laughed and picked up a knife to cut into some sort of fish-looking thing. "Do fish count as a meat?”

“If plants can count as meat, why not?” Lucy asked. She finished a bit before me, then stole a few veggies from my plate until I finished. The moment I was done, the waiter returned and took our plates away and brought us fresh water.

Then he returned with dessert.

“Ohh,” Lucy said as she looked down upon a thick wedge of cake that wouldn’t be surviving the next few minutes.

I laughed and picked away at my own dessert, some pie that sounded fancy and that tasted pretty good. “So, uh,” I hesitated a bit. What could we talk about? I didn’t want to go into anything heavy, not if it meant ruining the moment. “Did you ever want to try like, new hobbies or something?” I asked.

“New hobbies? Like what, knitting?”

“No, no, like... I don’t know. What do rich people do for fun?” I asked.

“Golf?” Lucy asked. “Eat really good salads? Hire whores? Mock the poor and downtrodden?”

I laughed. “Okay, so not that. I don’t know, but right now we don’t need to focus so much on... you know, surviving. We can do other things for fun.”

“I do want to buy a tennis outfit,” Lucy said.

“You want to try tennis?” I asked. That didn’t sound very Lucy-like.

“Hey, I’ve got bouncy legs now. Also, you get to wear those really short skirts.” Her eyebrows wiggled at me. “And then you get all sweaty.”

I swallowed a bite of my pie. “Yeah, uh, I’m sure we can find something. I think I might get into shooting.”

“Shooting? Like trying to hit things with bullets?” Lucy asked. “Don’t you already do that? You know, Samurai and all?”

“Yeah, my aim is... bad. Awful bad. Myalis keeps mocking me about it. But so far I’ve been pretty much pulling the trigger and hoping for the best most of the time. I’d like to actually learn how to aim.”

“Wow,” Lucy said. “That’s terrifying.” She smiled. “You’re so incompetent.”

“Hey!” I said.

We finished our desserts, then slumped back. The meals hadn’t been too big, but they were enough that I was feeling full. Lucy kicked her feet up under the table and managed to only-just place them on my lap.

I felt like I could almost fall asleep. There was a faint bit of music playing in the background, nothing too exciting, but a nice lilting song on some string instrument that was accompanied by the clink of glass and utensils. I twitched my new ears and fiddled with their controls. Soon, that music was accompanied by the steady drumbeat of Lucy’s heart.

“Do the ladies require anything?” the waiter asked.

I jumped a bit, having entirely failed to notice him. “Oh? Uh, no, I’m good,” I said.

Lucy pulled her feet back and sat up straighter. “Me too,” she said. “We should probably head out soon.”

I reluctantly agreed.

The waiter nodded. “In that case, here is the cheque.” He placed a piece of paper on the table, then bowed and left.

I pulled it over, and winced at the number. There was a barcode next to it, to scan and send the money over via electronic transfer.

“Bad?” Lucy asked.

“Huh? Nah, just forgot that I could afford these kinds of things now.” I got up while my augs worked out how to pay.

I’ll take care of it.

I nodded and reminded myself to thank Myalis later as I moved around the table and helped Lucy up. She leaned against me, arms hugging mine close.

“Let’s go home.”

“Home?” I asked.

“To the kittens,” she said. “We need to pick something up for them.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I made a note for Myalis to see, telling her to tip the waiter appropriately, then I walked side-by-side with Lucy, all the way out front where our taxi was just pulling up to the curb.

Opening the backdoor, I waited for Lucy to get in, but instead she paused, turned around, and climbed to the tips of her toes to plant her lips against mine.

She tasted like cake and sweetness and Lucy... and maybe that salad. Damn, it was a good salad.

“Think we can fuck in the car?” she murmured.

I felt myself flushing a bit, even as I tried to hold back a grin that was no doubt a bit goofy. “Let’s find out,” I said.

***