SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories: 10 Science Fiction Short Stories
Page 7
They started shipping on the promised date. Since there was a high volume of orders, Meatu faced a lot of shipping delays. Many countries banned the product and didn't allow pre-orders.
Urgent Board meeting in Fleshd
“How did we miss this. We have to remedy this. We need to introduce human meat as well, but what will be the difference maker for us?”
An analyst for the company spoke up. “We underestimated them as simple copycats because they never introduced new things before. Some fresh people gave them this idea. Maybe we need fresh minds to compete with them?”
“Well, we can also book a famous actress or model and introduce human meat,” suggestion a couple of board members.“No, that won't do. We don't simply copy our competition. Who has another idea?” asked the CEO.
Silence.
“Listen. I invited a new person. He's joining us as the Vice President of Creative Endeavors. Let's give him some time to analyze this problem and bring a great idea to our desk that we can discuss at the next meeting.”
After a few minutes of conversation a guy in his thirties entered the room.
“This is Robert Maxwell, the new VP of Creative Endeavors.”
The board didn't expect him to be so young. They weren't impressed with his appearance and most were wondering where he came from. Why was he important enough to give a top role in the company to?
He introduced himself
“Hi. As he said, I am Robert Maxwell. I worked for Meatu for five years. During that time I gave them a lot of valuable ideas but they were content with copying your company. I'm here because I know that Fleshd can destroy Meatu in the marketplace. This is where we will form the new ideas that bring us into global dominance of the artificial meat market.”
“Thanks, Robert. Alright everyone, let's meet again in a few days. Cathy will let you know more tonight about the schedule. I think big things are happening and we're going to come out on top, especially with the help of Robert.”
“How about now?” asked Robert.
“What do you mean, now?” said the CEO.
“I have an idea now. Is it alright if I pose it to the group?”
“Sure, why not?” replied the CEO
The board was surprised that he already had an idea.
“Listen, we can't go buying up every actress or celebrity like Meatu has. And there's not enough rare animals in the world to supplant human meat in the marketplace. It's a big seller, there's no doubt. The only meat that can compete with human meat is, well, human meat. If we were to go get a celebrity, they're going to want a lot of money because now they realize how big their endorsement would be. Then Meatu buys someone, then we buy someone and celebrities make a ton of money off of us. Are we here to make celebrities richer?”
“Certainly not!” shouted an older member of the board.
“Exactly. We're here to make ourselves richer. The only solution left is crowd sourcing.”
A few of the board members nodded in agreement but the rest looked lost.
“Let me explain. In crowd sourcing, we get ideas, a product or a service from people in a crowd. For example Apple has the Appstore with more than a million apps. Apple could never develop this many apps on their own. It's all developed by the Apple developer crowd. The AppStore revenue is a billion dollars every year. It's not because they sell hardware. It's not because they develop software, it's simply a facilitation mechanism. Apple took a lion's share of the profits and shared some with the developers as well. It's a win-win situation. Apple doesn't need to buy the apps or develop the apps and they still get paid.
“Similarly, we will launch the “Meat Store,” so anyone can sell their meat. Before they can list that meat they have to send their tissue and get medical clearance from us. We keep all the tissue in the storage center and they can upload details for it. Whoever is interested in buying the meat can order it through the website, mobile app or by phone. We will grow the tissue and fulfill the order. On demand processing. We share some royalty with the person who gave the tissue and we're good to go.
“In this model, people who sell their tissue get a recurring income for a one time tissue collection. They market themselves. We don't need to pay any upfront cost. Celebrities will come to us. Actresses will come to us. They'll all want a piece of the action.”
The board members were very excited with this. They immediately set the plan into motion.
Six months later, Fleshd's revenue increased by 200% and thousands of celebrities were part of the Meat Store. And they were rapidly adding more people. Human meat was now the trend. And food habits were categorized not as vegetarian, or vegan, but by whether or not someone ate human meat. Humanitarians and non-humanitarians.
PRESIDENT'S OFFICE
The President and Home Minister sat on opposite sides.
“What did you want to discuss so badly?” asked the President.
“It's about the Fleshd Meat Store.”
“Yes. I know about it. I ordered some. Shipping is somewhat slow, but the product is exciting, isn't it?”
The Home Minister was surprised because he thought the president was a non-Humanitarian.
“Do you eat human meat, Mr. President?”
“Sure, why not? The whole country eats it nowadays.”
“There's concerns though. A lot of college kids are on the Meat Store. It seems like we're going back to the old stone age days. Humans eating humans. This is the reality of the situation.”
“Who's dying from it? It's only artificial meat. It's not real. You can donate your hair to Locks of Love. You can donate your blood. When you die you can even be an organ donor. Or heck, you can donate a kidney when you're alive. It's their own choice to be part of the Meat Store,” replied the President.
“Sure, sure. It seems to be under control now, but the future will not be good. Or Future Prediction software predicts that there will be alterations to that. Things will go badly.”
The Home Minister opened up his laptop and logged in to the government's Future Prediction Application. He selected hot trends and chose the future of the Meat Store. It displayed the following report:
People may start to see other people as food.
Some may feed human meat to animals and the animals will develop a taste for it.
It encourages racism. No longer does Chinese food come from China, it is Chinese people. Some say that certain people are dark meat or white meat and argue about who tastes better. There's already been tension.
Over 80% of the world will consume human meat.
Human meat will illegally spread to countries in which it is banned.
If someone doesn't have their meat in the store, someone might forcibly take a tissue sample from them to see what they taste like.
“As you know, our Future Prediction software is 80% correct. It may not predict every possibility but most of those will come to pass. We need to ban human meat immediately and recommend other nations to follow suit.”
“It's only 80% likely to happen,” said the President. “Other than the last point, there's not much danger in the situation I think. If they happen, they happen. Also, human meat will be taxed at a higher rate so that we can bring in more money for the government. That should help fix some of the problems, right?”
The President decided that he wasn't going to ban human meat. The Meat Store saw a lot of business. The government allowed flexible pricing for human meat and celebrities earned even more money from the Meat Store. When a new celebrity launched their meat in the Meat Store, sometimes the price exceeded $100 per lb. Humans eat humans and the government got revenue.
However, three months later, the President decided to ban human meat. No one knew why. Not even the Home Minister.
Turns out, the President learned that his daughter was planning to sell her tissue to the Meat Store. He found out by accident. As a father he wasn't ready to hear how many pounds of his daughter's meat were being sold every day.
OTHER B
OOKS BY AUTHOR
SFS1 - Science Fiction Short Stories $1.99
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Krishna Kumar resides in India and is a new author who writes mainly in the science fiction genre. He is currently working on a novella and above everything else puts his readers first when writing stories.
He is a techie with twelve years of experience in the IT industry and currently works for an IT product startup as their Senior Technology Architect. Writing is his passion and he's been writing since he was ten years old. This is his second publication after the SFS1. He hopes you've enjoyed reading his work.
Reach him at www.writerkrish.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/writerkrish
Twitter @ writerkrish