Our Valued Employee!

Year 2206

New Scotland

“Musky,” A voice muttered from the mouth of a young Scottish girl. “Oi, speak up lass, whaddya saying?” A gruff-sounding woman calls out from inside the kitchen boiling water on the stove.

“I said, it’s musky,” the girl repeats. “Musky, what is?” The woman gives an annoyed expression, seemingly ready for a smart-ass response. “This couch. It smells musky. Must be cause’ of you,” The smart-ass responds.

“Oi, haud yer wheesht, damn brat,” The woman turns back towards the boiled pot and opens a package of off-brand mashed potato mix, and dumps it in the pot as she starts to stir.

“Get ready to eat. Best you and the others get some now before your pops gets home. Most likely be steamin’ bloody bad when he gets here,” The woman makes a shooing motion towards the hallway.

“What er’ we having?” The girl asks as she flops onto the floor and starts to get up. “It’s almost ready, go on, git,” The woman says not even hearing the question. “Oi, I asked what we’re eating, ya auld bawbag,” The woman looks back over her shoulder at the young scottish girl looking up at her with an annoyed expression. “We’re eatin’ mashed tatties… Wait, what did ya call me brat?”

“Where having mashed tatties!? HELL YEAH,” Another young girl's voice echoes inside the musky hallway. The sound of her footsteps bounces off of the cheap wooden paneling. The sounds fades as the old dream ends and the scottish girl starts to wake up.

June’s eyes open to see the orange and golden sky staring back at her. The smell of fresh tatties being carried on the wind. “Bonnie, thanks again for the fresh tatties. I’m waiting on the analysis but soon I’ll be making some fresh tatties,” Her voice, soft with drowsiness.

“Oh shoot, wasn’t I supposed to do a check-in today with the ballons at HQ? Damn, I’ll do it after dinner,” June starts to get up and pat herself off, making her way to her space pod.

Her computer shows a hologram of a blinking Analysis Complete message. June presses a couple of buttons on the terminal and the sample of the tattie she found is released.

“Alrighty then, let’s see what this tattie has going on,” She begins reading over the analysis, skimming over the unnecessarily complex words and selectively finding the stuff she finds interesting about it. “Ooo, ok, seems like you’re a bit dense aren’t ya, mister Tattie Head Jr.? Roughly 28% percent of your makeup is taken up by carbohydrates,”.

“From what I know about normal tatties, you got a bit more starch in ya than normal. Sounds tasty!” She continues skimming through the data. “Oh, and lookie here, higher amount of iron than normal in these too. That’s good for me too! These things are great!” June’s stomach rumbles, which makes her realize it's time to eat.

“Just gotta send this over to HQ real quick and I’ma start cookin. I’m thinking mashed tatties, what about you Mrs. Space Pod?” Silence rings from the lack of a response. “I’ll take that as a yes!” As June is chatting to her space pod, she sends the sample data to HQ.

Moments later, a hologram pops up reading B111. “Hello, Miss Juniper? We’ve just received data on a new edible plant you’ve found on ZX7. Well done. Please be warned, typical humans spend their entire lives eating synthetically processed food. When reverting to all-natural, non-synthetically made food, it can take your digestive tract some time to get used to the changes. Please heed caution and be prepared for the repercussions.” Bill's posh voice fills the space pod.

“I’m sure it can’t be too bad, lighten up Bill! How often does someone get to say that they’ve had the privilege to eat real food!?” June says with a naive excitement in her voice. “I’ll be fineeeeeee, Don’t you worry your little head, Bill,” June says with a cheeky kind of smirk.

“Mmm yes, of course, I’m sure you’ll be perfectly fine Miss Juniper,” Bill remarks with a slightly sarcastic tone. “Yes, if I had a little head, it most certainly wouldn’t be worried about your digestive tract.”

June looks over at the hologram and makes a sneering grin and giggles as she starts to wash the slices of the potato. “Before I leave you to your culinary endeavors Miss Juniper, The company is sending you a reward for your accomplishments thus far. The care package will be here soon. Thank you for work, and goodbye.” Bill finishes the conversation, ending the call moments later.

“What a balloon,” June says as her smile shifts to being dedicated to her meal in front of her. “Now back to the important things at hand.” Her smile grows bigger and her pupils dilate with enthusiasm.

After roughly an hour goes by of mashing the boiled potatoes, adding in various touches like butter, salt, milk, etc., The meal comes together. “Makes me wonder if I’m the first one from the foster home to ever have real tatties” Her thoughts glaze over a few distant memories, remembering the way the entire neighborhood enjoyed tatties.

Taking the fresh bowl of mashed tatties outside, setting up in front of the view of the distant hills and the moons overhead, She looks down at her bowl with real, genuine, non-synthetic mashed tatties in it, and her stomach growls as her mouth begins to water.

“Can’t believe it, what a bloody moment. Real tatties, not a pack of instant mashed tatties, and not synthetic. Real harvested tatties. This is one of the best days of my life” She looks up at the sky as gratitude exits her mouth “THANKS BONNIE, IF YA HAD A MOUTH, I’D LET YA TRY SOME. AHAHAHA!” June looks down, digs into the mashed potatoes with a spoon, and shoves it into her mouth.

June's eyes begin to water, a tsunami of feelings flood over her. This is her real, first moment of complete realization of what her life is now. Thinking back to where she came from and what she had to do to get to where she is now. Her mind races so much that she starts crying solitary streams down her pale, pink, freckled cheeks.

“Aw man, this is more amazing than anything I ever had back home. Tatties have always been the best, but this is just incredible. Who knew some scran could be so freaking tasty!” Her eyes close for almost a whole minute as she just sits and enjoys her tatties.

“I’ve heard that higher starch contents in certain tatties make the mashed tatties you make even thicker and sticker, but this is crazy! I didn’t add too much fat besides a little bit of milk and butter but these stick right to my spoon!” She shakes the spoon above the bowl, causing the mashed tatties to, with some resistance, evidently splat into the bowl again.

“Wish you could’ve tasted these” Her voice was soft and filled with a slight sadness. For a moment, June falls into her own thoughts, but shortly after being pulled out of her memories with the sight of a little metal box with a heavy-duty parachute slowly falling over her head and onto the soil roughly 5 feet behind her.

“Wow, they're bloody good at aimin’ these things” She looks over at the box, almost mildly impressed. “Oh yea, didn’t Bill say they wanted to show me their gratitude or something? I wonder what they sent. Ooo, I wonder if it's a Self-directed vacuum cleaner, I don't wanna waste time cleaning my pod when there's so much to do”.

On the front side of the small box, a fingerprint scanner labeled Juniper O’Neil sits waiting for June to open it. “Alright, let's see what they got me.” As she scans her fingerprint and the box opens, a hologram pops up saying, “Thank you for your dedication to Project: Beyond Comprehension! We’re glad you survived your first night. We got you a present to show you how valuable you are to us!”.

“How valuable I am?” June scoffs “I’m probably not even worth a can of fizzy juice to these rich bawbags. Well, let's see how valuable I really am” June goes to open up the little green gift box, wrapped up with a green ribbon and a bowtie at the top.

“As June goes to open it up, she looks inside and sees a little fancy black gel pen. Project: BC is painted in white, vertically on the side of the pen. “As wrong as it feels and as dumb as I feel this is, I’m actually pretty happy about this. So I will put this in my pocket, send this box back, and be happy with my Corporate gift.”

Unsure exactly how to feel with herself and the gift, she looks down and goes to press the Return button. “And I’m keeping this gift box too. I like it” She looks down and smiles at the pen and the gift box.

Moments later the metal box folds back up, and rockets thrust it back up into the sky. June looks down at the box, finding ground with how she feels “A bloody pen!? Do those bastards really value me as much as a fancy pen? I’ll take it, but they’re still off their trolley!” June stomps back into her pod to put away her new company pen and cute little gift box.