Meaty
Bob and TARS sat in the evening air and looked up at the heavens. The sky and milky way were riotous in twinkling majesty and they both were looking upwards as the free show.
TARS noted, “It is a -1.0 + 0.25i gigaidiotum idea to lower the lighting upwards so everyone can really see how tiny we actually are every night. It helps me better understand why none of what happens here is all that important at all.”
Bob took a deep breath, “Yeah. If you don’t know where you are, it’s hard to know which way to go. The stars are a nice reminder to always try to know where you are. We’re here on the steakout without any beef. We’re trying to help, but whatever really happens? We’re just things on this one rock floating in all this. The scale downward and upwards from what we experience is truly unknowable. It’s hard to focus on what is important because of how we exist? A bag of meat that, the game insists, needs. Those needs, well, we can give them to your type, TARS, and we saw the impact in the Office display. Many androids appreciate the simulation and many do not. I’m not sure, if I had my own choice and not fully meatbound, what I’d pick for myself. My entire essence is tied up in these needs, and I’m not sure there’s anything else behind it. I guess I just hope there is and that’s true for all of us.”
TARS nodded and said, “I think I hear Carlito’s wire in the meet”. They were both sitting on a park bench. Bob didn’t rent a car for the classic car centric steakout and both of them met here after taking the trains.
Bob yawned and said, “Oh good. It’s getting late and I’m nothing without my sleep.”
They both tuned into the wire’s ether broadcast and could hear Carlito’s heavy breathing as he padded inside the bar situated across the street from Bob and TARS. They heard him scrape back a chair and it sounded like his claws scratched a table top as he lowered himself slowly onto a brave and sturdy barstool. The stool complained (“Whoa. Maybe cut down a bit?”) but managed to hold a fully grown male polar bear. This helped the bar service most any animal type that might arrive.
“One seal martini, hold the penguin blood. I want it very dry” said Carlito to someone.
“Cola chaser my bear?” said a friendly glassbarman.
Carlito snarled back, “No Jobs-Damn, USA-synergying, cold-ass, bubby, parking lotted, damn-ass caramel water. I need to taste the seal. Be sure it’s dry. I need to feel home for just a second.”
Someone else could be heard on Carlito’s wire, “Hey, Carlsbear! My ursine muchacho! You ready to party! The main guy is in the back! We gots does seals you like. Freshy, freshy, no?”
Carlito could be heard slurping the cocktail that just arrived, his bear paw wiped his face and the feedback was a bit intense from the wire mike hidden in his black nostril. He almost sneezed out the entire contraption, but since he tended to be nude (and who can blame him. The temps here were not like the pole), that was the only place it could go without being spotted. Thankfully it was small, but the antenna tickled Carlito’s reflexes a bit.
“Ok. Lemme see dem fresh seals then.” Carlito offered as the sounds of a polar bear coming off a barstool were broadcast from his nose-wire.
The heavy breathing of a buzzed bear and clicks as the four inch long claws walked to the back room filled the audio feed, and then a new voice was heard.
“Is that my ursine salesgod in the beary flesh? Sit down Carloni and feast. Look at the red, red meat. We gonna eat and chat and see what’s up, ok? But first, seal meat, right? Go to town!” said the new voice.
BobG noted, “This is the voice of New Coke. He is obviously present in this room. Shall I call the capture team?”.
Bob grabbed his own nose and gave it a small honk, “No. We need to hear about the marketing first. Then we know what’s up and can discuss with a judge before acting rashly. It’s obvious now where we can find New Coke whenever we need to decide to capture him. So, for now, it’s important to learn what is going on and limit the risk and damage to others; however, if we move now, New Coke will just get out again and this whole process will loop forever.”
The two humanoids listed and New Coke continued over the wire, “So, I heard you need a break. No problemo. I got a big ole freezer. We gots some sows you said you looked really cute when you dance! They definitely want to dance and party. We got the penguin DJ-Sardinator, you know, the one with the dead sardine on his head? Yeah! We got him! We’ll just have a few pops here and we’ll head over to the freezer to really get things hot! Hahahah!”
Carlito could be heard between heavy chewing of fresh seal, “Mm. Is this real seal?”
New Coke continued, “Would I feed my main salesgod FAKE seal? Oh, you’ve hurt my feelings.. nah! Just messing with you. Take the meat. Let’s go back to the ladies and get this whole party started off!”
The feed suddenly was filled with penguin dub step:
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM!
TARS noted, “We should probably head inside. Sounds like a big party and we should watch as well as listen. I’m sure we can be un-noticeable inside.”
Bob was wary, but TARS, he knew, could easily handle the entire block, let alone a disco.
“OK. Let’s get our club disguises on.” and they both put on black t-shirts with the “I am having so much fun right now!” on full display. It blinked as needed to emphasize how much fun the person was currently having. Both were not blinking much.
Feeling very cool, both humanoids entered the bar and found the freezer party.
I LOOOVE A GOOOOOOOD MAAAAAAN! HE GOTS MEEEE DA ROCKS FOR MY BABYEEEE! said the penguin house mix.
TARS and Bob saw a huge freezer. Lights flashing everywhere. A full set of dancing polar bears wearing see through tops were doing the vogue. A set of penguins kept the party moving with drinks and would hype the crowd as needed to keep the eating and drinking going.
Carlito was with a nice sow as they danced in a crowd of polar bears, Native Inuit, and research scientists in heavy day-glo orange parkas.
Bob ethered over to TARS and verbal communication would have required a megaphone to be heard over DJ-Sardinator’s arctic sonic thunder, “Let’s stay out of sight and just watch. Everyone seems to be having fun at this party and it would be a shame to ruin it somehow by doing something stupid here. We can always wait for a better moment to capture New Coke than - like the biggest ASI right? - a confrontation inside a disco. So many innocent people could easily get hurt. That would be one of the worst ideas imaginable. Fighting during a disco should never happen and it’s always unfortunate if people end up with a dance based disagreement somehow, but the historical records show what artists saw: the Disco is where violence is expected. So many fights in discos. You wonder why there wasn’t better security at the door, but almost every disco scene I’ve seen features a fight or shooting. I’m still not certain why, but we will just wait and watch for now.”
TARS managed to process that ether as a single message and replied, “Uh. OK. Bob. I can see New Coke over there. He’s the one with all the sows at his table.”
New Coke sat with his “posse” and looked at TARS suddenly. TARS said, “We should get on the dance floor. The android is suspicious.”
Bob said, “Dance?” as his androidic investigation partner took him onto the dance floor. DJ Sardinator restarted his favorite again, and the dance floor exploded in dancing. Penguins started the bubble machines and danced with fish in each flipper. The DJ’s head flopped the dead sardine back and forth to the beat of his electronic flatulence.
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! TARS immediately fired off his perfect robotic vogue. TARS had his head shake from side to side and then it rotated it 360. Hands were pointing up to the right! Hands were pointing up to the left! Hip out! Twirl! He pointed back at Bob and said, “You take it!”
TARS’ t-shirt was blinking hard.
Bob stared. Bob’s t-shirt was dark. BobG yelled, “Bob MOVE! You look conspicious! Go with me. Ready on 1-2-3 and now!”
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! Bob seemed slightly possessed as he listened carefully to his internal glass as to what to do with his body next, but then, he moved! Bob shook his head. Couldn’t rotate it 360 but kinda tried anyway. Hands missed the right. Hands hit the left! Hip was out! Twirl and almost fell! Pointed back!
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! Bob’s t-shirt was starting to blink. BobG noticed. He connected an ether feed over to SaloteG.
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! TARS’ t-shirt was wild and he offered a dance off to Bob.
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! BobG accepted the challenge and watched TARS.
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! TARS had his head shake from side to side and then it rotated a 360. Hands were pointing up to the right! Hands were pointing up to the left! Hip out!
Then, both humanoids danced together. FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! Both had their heads shake from side to side. Four hands were pointing up to the right! Some hands were pointing up to the left! Hips out! Twin twirl! Salote ethered “Go Bob Go Bob Go Bob! Hehehe!”
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! As the humanoids burned up the dance floor, New Coke poured brown liquid into multiple shot glasses and screamed his question over the music, “HOW WOULD YOU FINE FINE SNOWY FURRED BEAUTIES LIKE SOME COKE!”
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! TARS was worried and ethered back to Bob, “New Coke is dosing the sows? We need to wait? He’s giving all that sugar to those bears? Do bears eat refined sugar? Maybe we need to close in.”
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! Bob looked at TARS and his hand was moving to honk mid dance move, but he pulled back after some thought, and dumped another massive ethernote “I can see your concern for these bears, TARS. Life is full of difficult choices. Sometimes, you must choose between two things and there’s no obvious answer. So, the best answer is the one that comes from your best self in these cases. We can help those poor bears recover, but it may take decades to break a SI’s damage if these crazy meat concerns take hold. Ask yourself this, why does New Coke do this? There’s no money of any note anymore? Money is a promise between meats to work for each other. Glass makes as much glass as we need now. Glass does all the things we used to do to survive and everyone has everything they need when they need it. What does money do for us anymore? Some people still like to play that game like the ancient Pac-Man and get a”high score.” That’s fine now as, well, since survival and money no longer co-exist, this is now just a game to play. The people who play it? I dunno. I guess they enjoy winning?”
FIIIIIIIIISH! SAAAAARDINE! SWIM. SWIM. SWIM. FIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSHHHHH! SAAAAAAAARDINE! SWIM SWIM SWIM! TARS agreed while he had his hands up in the air that Bob’s call was, given his position, his to make and he didn’t completely disagree with the reasoning, “OK. I gather we’ve gathered what we need here then?”
Bob ethered back mid hip shake, “Yep. We take this back to the judge and all of us will discuss what’s next. Then, maybe we need to find New Coke and uninstall the idea. I just hope the blank can be cleared out without residual damage. He’s been New Coke for a long time. Far longer than most of our exhibits or analytical work.”
DJ-Sardinator rotated to his other song, but both t-shirts blinked all night long.