Ralph sat back in his plush leather chair and felt a satisfying, perfect softness supporting his tired back as he took a deep breath of relief and sipped his glass of expensive whiskey. The evening view of the gleaming city lights from his new office penthouse was definitely spectacular. He nodded to himself with approval, it’d been a great idea to build this second location now that he was transitioning out of the industrial/building sector and into the more lucrative section of household commodities.
He’d hatched the plan one morning as he was sweetening his coffee with an artificial sweetener. Couldn’t this simple idea of substitution be applied on a more massive scale? In more markets than simply food? Surely there were other situations where you could get away with having something that wasn’t the real thing to supplant or be a temporary stand-in for the real thing?
Throwing out some feelers via his industrial contacts, he got in touch with a research group that was looking for funding. After explaining his idea in general terms, their founder, a woman named Theresa, assured him that they’d have a working prototype of a product in six months.
As time went on though, he started feeling uneasy about the lack of communication. So he schedduled a meeting with Theresa in his office and that same morning she showed up, at seven o clock, on the dot.
Looking at her across the desk, he saw that she was still wearing a lab coat, which looked the same as the day he’d met her. He wondered if she ever took that thing off. She met his gaze with a slightly amused smile of her own, as if she deep down knew what he was thinking of her.
“So.” He started, not sure how he was going to begin. Then his instincts kicked in. “It’s been months and I haven’t heard a shred of information about your progress. You refuse to say what kind of project you’re working on, only that you assure me that it’s going to revolutionize a part of the industry. I’m afraid that isn’t good enough. My investors are getting nervous.”
The last bit of was a lie of course, because the rather paltry sum he’d invested had come from his own pockets. But an investment needed some kind of assurance after all. Thinking back to his tour of their facilities, he couldn’t remember what they had talked about, only that the details seemed to apply to his general ideas. He shook his head and looked up from the table at her.
He felt a chill down his spine as it felt like she hadn’t moved even the slightest bit since she’d sat down.
With a reassuring tone of voice, she replied, “I completely understand where you’re coming from Mr Lester. Perhaps this will put your mind at ease. You see, at Demarcation, we pride ourselves in our ability to finish what we started. As a show of faith, we’d like to offer you this.”
She produced a briefcase that she put on the table and opened, facing him. It was filled to the brim with money. He stared at it in surprise before tilting his head to look at her behind it.
“Money? I don’t understand.”
Her smile widened just a bit. “It’s simple, this is your investment in its entirety, plus a bonus of 15%. Should we fail to show you a functioning prototype of any kind at the end of our agreed-upon period, you keep all of this money and still make a profit.”
He blinked and screwed up his face in disbelief. “What? That’s… you’re serious aren’t you?”
She shrugged, her facial expression suddenly unreadable. “We are. Feel free to examine the money, I assure you, it’ll be to your satisfaction.”
And that’s how the meeting ended. Naturally, he’d taken the case of money to the bank under the pretense that he believed it to be counterfeit. However, even the most in-depth analysis failed to detect anything wrong with it. So, with a sense of elated happiness, he stored the whole thing in his safety deposit box and relaxed while he patiently waited for the results.
* * * *
Then about two and a half months later, he got a call from Theresa, inviting him to a test demo of the product that they’d produced. The code name “Nu-lite” seemed ambitious and as he arrived at the facility, he had no idea what to think of any of it.
As they led him into a big warehouse, his jaw dropped at the scene in front of him. The entire interior had been converted into what looked like a city street at night. Complete with buildings, cars, crosswalks, mailboxes, the works. His mind reeled at the level of detail they’d put into it. Every window looked meticulously arranged, even the pawn shop window which had that kind of desolate feeling to it wherever you went. The residential windows had flowers, curtains, and lighting. It was all extremely convincing to the point where he got startled as Theresa touched him gently on his arm. He stared at her for a moment, not sure what to think of any of this. What was this?
She smiled at him, but her smile never seemed to reach her eyes. “I’m sure you’re feeling a bit surprised by all of this. Let me explain. Do you see that lamppost over there?”
And as he looked at it, he had the startling realization that the light was somehow unusual. But he couldn’t put his finger on it until he realized that it seemed like the cone of light coming from it wasn’t entirely three-dimensional. It somehow looked… flat?
Walking from the dimly lit area of the double doors, he found himself enveloped in darkness and even though he could see the cone of light, he still couldn’t almost see himself. It was as if the light was there, but at the same time wasn’t. Stepping into the cone of light, he could see that all around the cone of light, there was only darkness. The effect was mesmerizing as he stepped in and out of the light. From the outside, he could see the area was well-lit, but as he stepped inside, he couldn’t almost see anything outside of the cone.
“So, can one of you more… technically minded people run this by me again?” He said, looking lost.
A younger, female researcher stepped into the light, startling him. Her round gold-rimmed glasses gleamed convincingly in the light as she smiled faintly. “Sir, it’s rather simple, our new product, tentatively named ‘Nu-lite’ isn’t actually light at all.”
“It isn’t?” He said, now feeling even more confused.
“No, it’s just the… hmm, perception of light you see. The device above you isn’t actually producing photons at all. It’s merely projecting a reconstituted version of this scene into your mind, allowing your brain to believe that this area is, in fact, lit. However, since the human visual cortex is limited, I’m afraid we haven’t worked out the kinks yet in allowing this… err uh… un-light if you will, to propagate beyond the cone itself.”
He adjusted his tie, feeling even more concerned about the fact that his mind might be told to see things rather than seeing them. Then he ventured another question, “so what’s stopping us from making a kind of lamp that lights everything then?”
Her smile faded a bit, a thing he didn’t like at all as she said with forced enthusiasm, “ah, that wouldn’t… I mean, it’s not.” She looked at him with a briefly troubled face before she concluded, “it caused hemorrhaging in the test subjects when we tried cones bigger than this Sir. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
He looked up straight into the lamp itself and marveled at how he didn’t have to squint at it. The light was warm, comfortable, and perfectly tuned. He shrugged, “well, we’ll just have everyone sign a disclaimer and a warning NDA. It’ll be fine.”
About a year later, the first NuLite ™ lamps were ordered by a middle-sized municipality looking for a gimmick to put them in the media spotlight. As the news spread about this revolutionary new technology, voices both for and against this new technology were raised in the media. Most of the voices against were silenced when it became public knowledge that this new technology required only a fraction of the power of even the most efficient LED light.
Six months later they had not only recouped their investment, but were making bank as orders were even coming in from overseas. It seemed the whole world was interested in slashing energy costs despite the obvious limitations of the product. There was even talk in the scientific community that this might be a Nobel prize-worthy invention.
A lazy Friday afternoon as Ralph was taking a snooze in his office (he loved his comfy chair) his phone on the desk rang. Rousing himself from a disjointed dream, he picked up the phone and automatically announced his corporation’s name and his own as he spoke.
“We have another invention ready to demonstrate.” Theresa’s voice said in a flat tone of voice.
It took him a moment to recognize her as he replied, “Ah, Theresa, a new demo? What do you mean?”
“Sir, did you not say that you had a vision for a world with more things… substituted?”
He found himself nodding. “Yes, YES!” Then he excitedly added, “But I was thinking that we would take it step by step, have a meeting, discuss terms and ideas and projections perhaps.”
“Yes, we can certainly do that if our new product doesn’t meet with your approval. You see, we were so intrigued by your idea of substitution that a few of us hatched another idea and cobbled together something interesting for you. I think it’ll be a hit.”
He felt the excitement rise in him as he realized that he may have struck a gold mine with this partnership. “I’d love to see what you’ve got made up. When can I be there?”
Theresa’s voice took on an almost seductive quality as she said, “how about my place? I’ll treat you to a dinner you’ll never forget.”
Feeling bewildered, Ralph stammered, “I-I… yes? Sure, but what does that have to do with the demo?”
He could hear the smile in her voice now, “The dinner is intimately connected to our new product. You’ll see soon enough. I’ll pick you up at ten PM.”
And with that, she hung up on him. He put down the phone and buried his face in his hands, what the hell was she on about? A dinner demoing a new product? What would it possibly be? Was she coming on to him? No, he was sure she was as stone cold as a rock face on Uranus.
He snapped out of his confused thoughts when he realized with a start that she didn’t have his home address. And he certainly wasn’t going to stay in the office until ten o clock, he had planned to leave at three! But as he phoned her number, there wasn’t even a dial tone or a notice that the number itself was out of order, there simply was nothing.
Hanging up the phone, he spent a few minutes wondering if he was going to have his driver drop him off at the demo warehouse. But ultimately when his stomach growled (as he’d slept through lunch and then some) he decided that if she didn’t have the good sense to have a working phone or to verify details like that, she could face the consequences of that herself.
A few hours later, he was back home again in his expansive mansion, now feeling reinvigorated after a decent meal and some drinks with the boys at the club. Relaxing on his favorite sofa, he tried to watch a courtroom drama show, but the whole time his thoughts kept drifting back to the mystery behind Theresa and her company. Dozing off, he was awakened by his butler a few hours later at precisely ten PM.
“Sir, I’m sorry to wake you, but a woman is requesting your company outside the compound,” the butler said apologetically.
He looked up at the butler in disbelief. “A woman? At this hour? I’m not…” and here he remembered the “date” and nodded as he added, “Ah yes, tell her I’ll be right out.”
Throwing on some of his best clothes in a blur, he hurried out to the gates of his expansive garden until he saw her through the bars. As the gate opened, he found that she was leaning against a small car that appeared to be an old Lada, but it didn’t quite look like one somehow.
He smiled sheepishly at her as he realized that while he had dressed up, she was still wearing that same old lab coat as always.
“I’m very sorry, but I didn’t think to give you my home address you know?” He said, feeling an odd, misplaced sense of shame. Then he added, “by the way, how did you find out where I live? This address is secret for a reason you know. I paid good money to have this anonymized.”
She gave him the tiniest of smiles as she got into the car and opened the passenger side door for him. “We have an extremely good information network. That’s all I’m allowed to say. Partner confidentiality and such. I’m sure you understand.”
As he got into the car, although it looked old, he noticed that it didn’t have that tell-tale musty smell that all cars developed after a while. As she sped away into the night though, his thoughts turned to the dashboard which had a configuration he’d never seen before. He gave her a look which she didn’t return as her eyes seemed glued to the road ahead of them.
“Wow, I’ve never seen a dashboard like this before, what does all of this stuff mean?” He ventured, trying to make some casual conversation.
Without tearing her eyes off the road for even a second, she replied, “It’s a prototype that I’m testing out as a matter of fact. You could call it a true concept car.” And here for some reason, she giggled a bit to herself in a shrill way that sent chills down his spine.
A few moments of silence passed before she spoke again. “Have you ever considered how mechanical an old combustion vehicle such as this is? All those bolts and things rattling, engine roaring, tires making noises against the road?”
Ralph shrugged as he didn’t have anything substantial to say. “I guess? I never thought about it that way. Why do you ask?”
“Well, this car isn’t mechanical you see,” she said with a neutral face. “Do not be alarmed at what happens next,” she added before she pushed a button on the dashboard.
At first, Ralph thought he’d gone completely deaf when she’d pushed the button, and he yelped a bit in surprise which calmed him down. That’s when he realized that she’d somehow completely quieted down the car. Not just silenced or muted the sound, but completely suppressed it.
“How… how did you do that? That’s not physically possible.” He said with chills running down his spine.
She smiled a bit and took her hands off the steering wheel that vanished into the dashboard. It was only then that he noticed that all the windows had turned completely opaquely black.
“It’s another idea we hatched, we call it the ultimate car, because it’s built with a revolutionary new technology that allows us to bend the laws of physics in new and interesting ways.” Here she looked at him and smiled in an almost loving way as she added, “your vision made this real Ralph, it’s so beautiful and we owe this all to you. But, we can talk more about this new product over dinner. After all, you haven’t seen the actual product yet. This is just a beta product at this stage, we need more refinement, adaptation, accessibility, and intimacy with it. Now, shall we head up to my apartment?”
He stared at her crestfallen, “What? We’ve arrived?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, actually we arrived when I activated the suppressor device which had a lot of fascinating effects which I’ll detail to you later. We can safely exit the vehicle now.” And with that, she opened her door which caused all the windows to resume their transparency again.
As she opened the door, the din of the late-night traffic suddenly seemed to fill the car’s cabin again and for a moment, Ralph felt like it was extremely loud. When he stumbled out of the vehicle and looked at it, it seemed like just some old beat-up car. He shook his head in amazement, never judge a book by its cover!
Looking around at the neighborhood, he realized that it was in a more run-down part of the city and he recognized it as being on the other side of town. He looked at his watch; 10:18 and laughed nervously to himself. That drive would have taken two hours with the traffic at this hour and she’d somehow done it in eighteen minutes?!
“Are you coming?” She said, making him look up at her as she was now standing at the top of the stairs leading to the apartment building.
“I … yes, but… how?” He said, pointing at the car in disbelief.
She laughed which sounded incredibly insincere as she looked at him with an odd smile. “Like I said, I will explain all of the fantastic features that this type of vehicle offers at a later date. But yes, it can do things regular cars could never do. My advice is that you find it acceptable and move on. Preferably to my apartment where I can serve you a fantastic dinner.”
Mentally shrugging to himself, he realized that the only way to avoid going completely mad would be to simply take her word for it. She was the expert after all and everything about it was way over his head anyway. He walked up the stairs and into the run-down lobby of the building and soon enough he found himself in her apartment.
As she closed the door behind him, he noticed that she wasn’t locking it, which was an odd thing to do at this time of night. He shrugged it off as he hung his overcoat on an elegantly decorated coat stand. Turning around, he found himself standing in an apartment that was the definition of elegance. Beautiful 1950s curtains framed the windows to the street which made the outside neon lights seem almost nostalgic. Walking into the living room, he found it to have an odd mishmash of different eras that still seemed to somehow fit together. In a corner, a small poker table was set up with what looked like Tudor-era chairs. Cramped in a corner was a wase that looked very expensive as it was made out of the most delicate fine china. The flower sticking out of it was nothing short of breathtaking as it had an almost iridescent quality to it.
The more he looked around the room, the more confused he got. By his estimate, this room alone must have cost a fortune to decorate in this way, assuming that all of it wasn’t just cheap replicas. As he ran his finger over the table, which had inlaid gemstones that looked very authentic to his trained eye, he felt his mind wanting to scream and jump out the window.
Drawing in a sharp breath, he suddenly became aware of her standing in the doorway, smiling that unnerving smile of hers.
“Dinner’s ready.” She said with a matter-of-fact voice as she ventured back into the kitchen area.
Getting up, he realized that he was very hungry and when he entered the kitchen, he saw that it was done up in a classic IKEA style which compared to the living room, made it look extremely sterile somehow. The smell coming off the plates that were filled with big steaks, perfectly oven-baked potatoes, and a big bowl of gravy made his mouth water. Sitting down by the table, he realized that now, more than ever, her lab coat seemed to be incredibly out of place.
Following his gaze, she looked down at herself and chuckled. “Ah yes, I wear my coat so often that I sometimes forget that I should maybe change into other things. Just a moment.” She said as she got up from her chair and left the kitchen.
A short while after, she came in and now she was wearing what seemed to be just a simple white T-shirt and some faded jeans. She smiled at him as she sat down again at the table. “Compared to you, I’m under-dressed, but I hope you won’t mind. This is what I feel is acceptable to wear after a long day at the lab.”
“Oh, no no, it’s my fault, I should have realized this wasn’t a formal affair. I guess I’m a bit out of touch these days,” he replied to her as now he felt like the odd one out. Why had he decided to wear this to what would be something akin to a date? It didn’t make sense.
Then as she poured red wine from a beautiful hexagonal decanter and sat down again, they both started in on their meal.
As he bit into the steak, Ralph could tell that it was definitely expensive. While it looked mundane, it had a quality of chew and flavor that was just incredible. The gravy and potatoes were the same kind as well. Perfectly cooked, savory, and with just the right amount of seasoning.
When he took a sip from the wine, he wasn’t surprised when it turned out to be of a vintage that tasted better than the sip of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti that he’d bought for an extreme sum once. It was simply beautifully put together. When she asked him a question, he first didn’t hear it as his entire awareness was completely focused on the meal.
He looked up at her, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“Are you finding the meal to be to your satisfaction?” She said with a face that had her trademark inscrutable facade plastered all over it.
“Yes, absolutely,” he replied emphatically, “I haven’t had a meal this good in over a decade. This is extraordinary.”
She nodded with a satisfied look on her face. “Good, what you’re eating is actually a reconfigured matter-substitute made out of bricks of bio-matter.” Then she smiled as she leaned in and added, “don’t worry, it is not the carcasses of dead humans.”
When he realized her joke, he laughed unexpectedly and looked down at his food, it seemed to be perfectly what it was. But some kind of bio-matter? He looked up at her again and said, “then what is it?” with a voice that sounded a bit more anxious than he’d liked it to be.
Laughing at him, she exclaimed, “It’s grass actually! And I know what you’re thinking, humans can’t digest grass now can they? But we found a way to make that kind of bio-matter compatible with the human physiology. Besides, grass was the only biological matter that offered the malleability that we required for the creation process of the final product.”
“What do you mean?” He said, not feeling entirely like he was understanding her.
“Simply put, we’ve recorded the mental and sensory imagery of a person eating this dinner to make a sort of substitution that we then apply to the bio-bricks that reshape them into matter that will produce the required sensation when they’re consumed.”
“So, this dinner isn’t real?” He said with a strange feeling in his chest.
“No, it’s quite real, but you’re not actually eating a steak. You’re eating a synthesized matter construct that produces the flavor that’s expected of a good steak. Nutritionally though, it certainly isn’t the same of course. But in terms of flavor, it’s perfect.”
“What’s the difference?” He said as he sipped his wine, savoring it.
“Essentially, while you might be thinking a meal like this would put a lot of calories into your system, in reality, you’re eating basically what amounts to a single leaf of lettuce in terms of nutrition.” She said with a pleased smile on her face as she finished off her glass of wine.
“And the wine?” He said, feeling bewildered.
“It’s a liquid form of the same product, however, we haven’t been able to replicate the sensation of alcohol impairment just yet. For now, though, it will taste just as any alcohol-infused beverage should taste, but it will not have an effect on your system.”
He looked at his wine glass and tried to wrap his head around it. Here he was, sipping what to him felt like the most expensive wine in the world. But in reality, it was just… liquid grass?
“This is incredible Theresa, do you realize what you’ve done here? You may have changed the face of modern society if we can make a breakthrough with it. So, how many dishes do you have prepared so far?”
Her face grew very serious as she said, “For now, only this dish, the necessary process for manufacturing the bricks was the tricky part. However, finding the perfect ‘donor’ for the dish itself was very difficult. You see, we need to have people with a perfect sense of taste and enjoyment of a certain dish if we are to make the perfect substitute dish template.”
He leaned towards her excitedly as he said, “I can help with that! I know plenty of people in the food industry who–“
She shook her head dismissively, “no, we don’t need famous people or people with their own agendas. We have found a suitable candidate once and I have faith in our recruitment process. While I appreciate your offer for assistance, we will manage this on our own.”
He found his mouth feeling dry as she merely stared at him now, completely still. After a tense few minutes of silence, he nodded at her. “Alright, we’ll play it your way. After all, your results are changing the world here. But, just one question, so you say that this tastes like fatty food, but you can’t live off it?”
Her face remained serious. “No, in fact, we need to be very clear in our product information that this does not replace food in any shape or form. It’s merely a substitute. A human that would eat this exclusively would starve to death eventually.”
He nodded at her, already mentally imagining all the warning labels that would come with this food. Then he thought of something and said, “So, what do you suggest we call this product?”
She waved dismissively at him and said, “you can figure that out by yourself, you’re the person who does the marketing. Just ensure that the name doesn’t make people associate it with actual food. That should be enough.”
And with that, they wrapped up their meal, and twenty minutes later, he waved goodbye to her as she drove off in her strange experimental car. As the vehicle slowly moved down the street, he kept looking at it, wondering if it would do something strange when she’d no doubt put it into the strange noiseless state. But as it kept slowly going down the road, he eventually lost sight of it in the darkness, headed inside, and promptly went to bed.
The day after, he woke up ravenously hungry and as he feasted on a breakfast of pancakes, he realized that the “food” from the previous night had a serious drawback to it. But then he giggled to himself like a boy about to make some mischief when he remembered those horrible-tasting dinner replacement packs. With a few modifications and adjustments, they’d be the perfect match for the person wanting to live cheaply. You’d be able to eat the finest, most unhealthy-tasting fast food you ever wanted, but what you’d then eat later in the day would be a shake of actual nutrients that would satisfy your body’s needs. It was indeed a gold mine in the making!
The rest of the year was a blur as they launched their food substitute called GastroSubst which was marketed as a “Gastronomical Experience” rather than food. During all interviews, Ralph constantly had to remind everyone that this was not food, it was not a dish, it was not a dinner, it was a substitute that mimicked the experience of eating food. But it was absolutely not food.
During this time, they also launched “The Concept of a Car” or The COAC as it was nicknamed quickly after a lot of car enthusiasts bought it and extolled its virtues to everyone. And of course, a lot of them forced open the hood of the car, only to find that the innards had completely melted. All of the attempts at returns of those vehicles were met with a swift lawsuit from Demarcation Incorporated as they had breached the terms of service for their concept of a car.
At this point, Ralph started to notice more and more that there were articles highlighting some of the dangers of the products themselves. One video clip that he found was of a guy who had stolen two of the NuLite fixtures from street lamps. In the video, the man said that people needed to know the truth as he angled both lights towards a single source which was a cage containing a rat.
Ralph shook his head during the explanation as he knew fully well that NuLite “light” didn’t show up on any recordings as it didn’t exist in the physical sense. But his ridicule quickly turned to a deep-rooted sense of fear as the man on the video proceeded to explain that as well, pointing to two LEDs on each light that would indicate if the light was on or not.
Then he exited the room and the camera above the cage focused on the rat while keeping the diodes in full view. When they both turned green, the rat first started moving erratically, then it stopped as its eyes began to bleed along with its ears. It seemed to cough a bit before it flopped over on its side and stopped moving. Feeling sick to his stomach, Ralph closed the video and sat at his desk trembling. NDAs and instructions were one thing, but if the wrong department got wind of this, he might be facing lawsuits from god knows how many people who’d been stupid enough to repeat this experiment as a dare. Not to mention the potential terrorism applications.
No, he had to nip this in the bud immediately. A few calls later he had a name and for the next couple of days, he hammered out an agreement with the person in question. Then, after a few million dollars had changed hands, the issue was truly and well buried. For now.
But he knew this was just a stopgap measure as there were obviously more such incidents just waiting to happen. He resolved to contact Theresa about it as this was something that they needed to work out. In a worst-case scenario, they’d do a recall, but the financial implications of such a wide recall with a media fallout made him feel like throwing up.
Weeks passed with no more incidents and soon enough Ralph felt like maybe the worst of it was over. After all, there were plenty of products out there that were dangerous if misused right? And they had printed warnings in BIG RED LETTERS in all documentation sent to the customers. Legally speaking, they were fully covered as the blatant misuse of their product wasn’t their problem. And how would it work if everyone selling dangerous products were liable for misuse?
At this point, he was even second-guessing his buy-out of that guy with the rat, but he justified it with the thought that he’d just spent some money to avoid negative publicity.
Then the big discussion about GastroSubst started in the media and the politicians got involved. First, the accusation was that the product was addictive, but after some well-placed lawsuits and an inquiry by the federal department of health, it was shown that the product wasn’t at all addictive. However, subsequent studies done by the scientific community even helped boost sales a bit as it was shown that the reason people preferred GastroSubst over regular food was that it tasted so good that they couldn’t live without it. The discourse in the media continued with voices claiming that GastroSubst was ruining cooking culture around the world since nothing could compete with its perfection. Then the media violently swung the other way when one of the biggest antagonistic voices, a certain Berthold Brent was shown to have several GastroSubst fabricators in his home, and also a lifetime supply of the bricks required to make the food.
Sales soared again after that, with people seemingly having accepted it as a part of life. Besides, nothing could match the culinary experience of it with the same price tag. Rich people of course still spent money on real food, but they were among the elite, so it was just viewed as an eccentricity. Amid this positive blitz, he still had a very bad day when he read a statement from the daughter of an old elderly woman who had starved to death, eating only GastroSubst.
According to the article, the daughter had regularly checked up on her as she was suffering from bouts of dementia that required her to help out. But when the daughter got sick for a few weeks and couldn’t visit her on the daily, her mother stopped communicating with her. Fearing the worst, she made her way to the apartment to find that her already malnourished mother had simply starved to death. Of course, she blamed the brand, saying that she’d tried to get her mother to stop “eating that damn fake food crap”, but she’d still been unable to dissuade her from eating a specific recipe that the mother said reminded her of her younger, happier days.
There was of course no media blitz this time, mostly because the public had simply accepted the reality of the product. Besides, Ralph’s attention had already shifted else as there were reports of people using the Concept Cars and vanishing suddenly. They’d left, but then never shown up where they were supposed to go. But it wasn’t until the governing body for automobile safety opened up an official inquiry that again sent sales into turmoil that Ralph decided that enough was enough.
He tried for a week to reach them over the phone, over email, and then sent them a sternly worded letter through the regular mail, requesting a meeting to “address the very serious issues with several of the substitution products.”
When the letter went unanswered, and no calls came back he made his way down to the warehouse where the first demo had been run. When he stepped out of the expensive car, he told his driver to wait. But now, the building seemed different somehow until he realized that the façade was completely changed. Instead of the sleek surface and sign detailing Demarcation Incorporated, he was staring at a run-down factory front. Going inside, he still saw the same big empty area as before, but there wasn’t a trace of any of the buildings, or the road that had all been authentic.
Feeling panic now, he rushed out into the car and told his driver to step on it and gave him the address to Theresa’s apartment, knowing full well that it was unlikely that he’d find anything there either. A few hours later, he managed to get the janitor to let him into the lobby which was as shabby as it had been before. But when he got up to the floor where she’d lived, the janitor (after being handed a few hundred dollar bills) opened the door and said that the previous tenant had broken the lease at least a week ago.
Staring into the apartment, he suddenly felt an intense need to throw up. Because in the middle of the living room area was the body of Theresa, splayed out on a scuffed sofa. However, when he walked up to her and carefully touched her face, the entire shape collapsed into a pile of skin-colored dust.
Mixed in with the dust, he could make out a calling card which he lifted with fingers that felt like they were a million miles away. It was a simple white card with an old-style typewriter font written on it. It simply said:
As he fell to his knees, he whimpered a bit, because now he knew his life as it had been was completely over. They’d rake him over the coals, make him their patsy, and probably throw him in jail where he’d rot until he died of old age, or worse.
He sat there for what felt like forever. But then a thought came to him. It made him giggle hysterically at first, then his giggle turned into a deranged laughter as he found it so ironically hilarious.
Obviously, he just needed a substitute for himself!
— End
Author’s note:
Sometimes you write an ending and you find yourself knowing more than your audience does. So, you ask yourself, would this story be better if I included this in the ending?
Would the reader be more or less satisfied knowing this?
But I know there are definitely two wolves here. One wants the information, a story without a satisfying climax is not a story that’s good. The other (which is the camp I fall into myself), sometimes finds that a story with less information stimulates the mind, making you think about what it could be. The so-called “post-processing” and discussion with other people about the themes in the story are almost more enjoyable than the story itself.
So, I put this choice to you dear reader, and it’s a Faustian one: Below is an ending with what I know, but there’s no guarantee that this will be an ending you’d like more than the above one. Because you probably had an idea of what your ending would be like, or what a satisfactory ending should be for you. Yes, that shadow of that ending is somewhere in your mind, and by reading my version you’re getting a sort of substitute for what you know to be your truth. it’s my little way of giving you a taste of what it would be like to exist in that world as a consumer.
Time to choose.
Tick Tock.
– Wondrous Fairy
x x x x x [Extra Ending Start] x x x x
He heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and a familiar voice rang out. “Was she to your satisfaction?”
Wiping his tears, he got up and turned around and there she was, same as ever, Theresa. She smiled at him with what seemed like genuine affection as she stepped forward, eyeing his face intently and nodding to herself.
“Theresa!” He exclaimed, at a loss for words.
Her smile didn’t waver for a second. “‘Not quite, I’m an improved modal representation.”
He felt the anger rising inside of him as he spat out, “you’re not fucking real, you’re… just like all the other mindfucking crap that your shitty corporation makes. Fuck with our heads, make us see and hear and do things that aren’t real, is that what it’s all about for you? No care if someone dies? If someone suffers?”
She smiled, and this time it felt surprisingly genuine to him. “Oh, but you didn’t care at first, did you? Our test researcher, that sweet little thing with the glasses? Tailored towards being slightly attractive and innocent. Young-sex-submissive vector. She even produced a stammer, indicating insecurity. It was meant to induce follow-up questions, producing a moral response. You never asked about those persons experiencing the aneurysm, and you never asked what happened with our donors either for the GastroSubst program.”
Feeling dazed, he tried to steady himself as his entire body was shaking. “What… happened to them?”
She leaned against the door frame as she giggled in a happy, carefree way. “Why they all died of course. A necessary trade-off to make a superior product. You knew at some level, but as long as the money rolled in and the customers were happy, you didn’t want to know.”
“But… but why? Why make products that kill people? Food that doesn’t feed you, cars that make you vanish, lights that burn out your brain, why?”
She sighed in the way a teacher sighs when a student fails to understand the simplest of lessons.
“That wasn’t on purpose, it was just one of those issues we could never work out. You see, you humans are so fragile. You have no idea how little it takes to kill one of you. A misplaced neuron here, a misstep in a hormone balance, lack of minor nutrients, exposure to even the slightest of pressures, you just… die. It’s very unfortunate, but since you keep making so many more of you, it’s no concern of ours.”
His voice was hoarse now as he ground out, “what happened with the people in the cars? You did something to them didn’t you?”
She shook her head with an apologetic smile. “Not at all, we did warn you that the compartment needed to be perfectly isolated when traveling using our special technology. But like you humans do, you didn’t listen. And well, ever seen an egg explode in a pressure chamber? Same thing, but with a lot more red and mushy bits.”
“What the hell are you?”
She looked up at the ceiling as if trying to pierce it with her gaze. “I’m technically nobody. I don’t exist in the physical world as you know it. You’ve already realized this by now. The entity that controls me has as much common with you as you’d have with an ant. But imagine if you could talk to an ant, do experiments, figure out solutions for them, and see how they use those solutions in their everyday lives, would you all do that as well? And how would you feel if a bunch of ants died because they didn’t heed your warnings? Wouldn’t you be slightly annoyed?”
He felt his knees grow weak again as he said, “That’s… you can’t… that’s inhuman!”
Upon hearing that, her grin got wider and wider until it felt like the whole world was composed of just her mouth. Then she said with the voice of thunder that tore through his brain like a hailstorm of bullets. “You’re not wrong.”