My Lack of Knowledge
— the European kind with beaks —- videos of quivering food
- while screaming like a demon
- with the smallest number of syllables
- she calls “the stinky man.”
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My lack of knowledge about how Colloquillian summit facilities are laid out quickly became apparent. The pharma man tromped along obediently behind me, because the nanobots under my tenuous control gave him no alternative. But I could tell by his frequent, loud sighs that he was growing exasperated with my navigational decisions.
Ten minutes into the trek, we encountered the kitchens. Colloquillian cuisine is another weak area in my education, but it seemed to me this must actually be a culinary school. The gleaming steel counters held row after row of neatly folded uniforms. Each little pile comprised an apron, a shirt, and a pair of chef’s clogs — the European kind with beaks — and the uniforms were stationed in front of dozens of flatscreens playing videos of quivering foodstuffs. Fortunately the sound was off, because every few seconds the instructor would appear, hurling ingredients onto hissing griddles while screaming like a demon.
I located a roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Now all I needed was a smaller room that I could cover with it.
“Make food,” grunted the pharma man. I was surprised he could speak at all, so it was natural that he would express his wishes with the smallest number of syllables. But, did he want me to make food, or did he intend to do it himself?
“You can eat later,” I said, using the nanobot control app to steer him toward the exit. But he resisted the compulsion with vexing effectiveness. His feet didn’t budge. He pointed at the nearest video and its gelatinous images. Shockingly, I recognized the recipe it depicted, something foul that Mother forces us to consume on special occasions, the only meal I’ve ever known her to prepare personally, which she calls “the stinky man.”
What was this nanobot-addled pharma rep trying to tell me?
bonus points for using them in order