Memory Transcription Subject: Rosi, Yotul Housewife

  Date [standardized human time]: November 20, 2136

  As promised, the restaurant began filling up rapidly. People came and went as midday waxed and waned, but at its peak, the place bustled. And it was exhausting work, a mere two servers dashing around, keeping a dozen tables sorted, especially when half of them were up a flight of stairs. The only thing keeping me going by the end was my competitive spirit preventing me from tapping out before Sylvie did--human or not, surely I could keep up with an old woman!--and the fact that Chiri kept slipping me more of those “Cola” tonics. My heart was getting a bit jittery, but they were very refreshing.

  Around two or so, it had gotten quiet enough that I plunked myself down on a barstool to rest. Chiri, too. The big fluffy Gojid walked around to the other side of the bar and sat next to me. She looked less tired than me, but still more so than the humans. It was clear she aimed to surpass them someday. Charmaine, that odd Human Exterminator--I had no other concept for what to call a former soldier who seemed to prune people with dangerous violent tendencies from the herd, but it was strangely comforting to find out that humans had such a role at all--had been somewhat forcibly relocated to the bar as well at some point. Whatever esteem her position was held in, it evidently didn’t entitle her to hoard an entire four-seat table just to herself. She seemed hard at work, doing… something… with her holopad. Probably reviewing case files or something.

  Sylvie sat as well, resting her old bones intermittently, but there were few enough guests at the moment that she could lounge for a few minutes at a go between having to get up and help them. I felt bad about that, but my muscles were utterly worn. Sitting was nice, but I honestly wanted a nap.

  I sighed deeply, and leaned forward, resting my head on the bartop and listening to the cola fizz and the ice cubes crack as they melted. Gods, my parents would have killed to have cheap ice back home when they were growing up. It got warm in my part of Leirn. “Harder than I thought it’d be,” I muttered into my arms.

  “I hate stairs,” said Chiri in agreement.

  “Lucky you, then, getting to stay in one place,” I groused. “Why don’t they just expand the building footprint? There’s plenty of space.”

  “There, uh…” Chiri said, askance. “There didn’t use to be.”

  “Right,” I said, too tired to try and justify the Battle of Earth right now. “Yeah, I suppose it used to be more crowded around here.”

  “It was,” said the last person at the bar. Another human woman, pale as David, but with hair the color of straw. “I lived a bit further north, but I know the area. There used to be an amusement park near here. Lots of restaurants.” She made a bemused face. “Mostly seafood, though.”

  Seafood meant kelp on my homeworld, but the translator helpfully reminded me that humans were far more predatory than Yotuls, as if I could ever forget. Slimy and scaled sea creatures, served up wriggling and raw for the sick amusement of… No, no, from what I’d seen today from human cuisine, the fish were probably smoked or batter-fried. Why did this woman seem unhappy about that? I tilted my head to get an eye on her. She’d been here for a while. “Umm… who are you?” I asked, confused.

  “I’m Iris!” the woman said cheerfully. “Chiri asked me to work in the kitchen here?”

  Right into the kitchen with no apprenticeship out front, huh?! “You don’t say!” I said, glaring at Chiri for her betrayal.

  Chiri shrugged. “Can’t be helped,” she said. “She’s a vegan baker.”

  “Vegan baker,” I muttered. “I still can’t believe humans have a separate word for normal people food. Imagine having to specify that you’re a ‘poisonless cook’ or an ‘asbestos-free brewer’. Pfeh.” My eyes narrowed as the obvious thought occurred. I sat up. “Wait, I’m sorry, vegan baker? So the implication is that human baked goods typically contain, what, blood?!”

  “No, not blood,” said Iris. “Butter and eggs, mostly.”

  My mouth opened in shock and horror. “You grind up baby chicks for--”

  “You know, it’s funny,” said Chiri, preening and lording her foreknowledge again, “but I jumped to the same conclusion when I first heard. The short version is humans domesticated a species of junglefowl that lays eggs like crazy if they have extra food. Keep feeding them grain, scraps, and forage, they keep laying eggs. Keep the males and females separated, and you just get unfertilized eggs daily.”

  “Wow!” said Iris. “You really know a lot about humans.”

  Chiri nodded smugly. “I've been studying.” She narrowed her eyes at Iris. “Still not sure what gets a human waitlisted for the exchange program.”

  Iris looked mortified. “It's nothing!” she protested. “It's personal!”

  My eyes narrowed as well. I was starting to warm to the idea of humans as barbaric primitives more than cunning predators, but if this baker was hiding something… worse, if the Terran Government itself was actively hiding Iris’s proclivities from us… Well, not to be a nosy little gossip, but surely I had a duty to the herd to find out if Iris was dangerous or not, right? But how?

  David came out of the kitchen while I was brainstorming a plan. “Hi! I'm the Chef-Owner, David Lee Brenner. You're the vegan baker Chiri mentioned? Iris, uhh…?”

  “Miller,” said Iris. Family name? But miller was a profession…

  “Oh neat,” said Chiri, chittering and showing off her Earthling knowledge again. “A baker from an ancient line of millers. Your ancestors must be proud of you!”

  Iris chuckled. “Yup! It's fun to think… about…” She stared at David for a long moment. “Hang on, were you on TV?”

  David smiled. “That I was. Couple guest appearances on cooking shows, some cooking segments on morning talk shows, and I had a pretty good run on Culinary Combat.”

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  “That's a show where humans compete to cook the best dish,” Chiri explained, as if I couldn't guess. We had Federation TV on Leirn! Competing at civilized pursuits like culture and art wasn't an alien concept. “It's fun, Rosi. You should watch it sometime if you want to learn more about human cooking techniques.”

  I tapped the title into my Federation model holopad with a bemused expression on my face, and turned it around to show Chiri the results. “Oh wow, the show about humans preparing meat dishes is blocked content, who could have guessed,” I muttered dryly.

  “The block's going away soon,” said Charmaine, eavesdropping. “The U.N. media censorship push doesn't serve much of a purpose anymore if everyone's done picking sides for the upcoming war, and most of the people in the incoming SecGen administration never liked it in the first place.” She shrugged. “No more hiding who we are.”

  “Oh, thank Christ,” said David, looking relieved. “There's like five different cases on the Supreme Court docket here in the United States protesting if the UN even had the authority to override the First Amendment in the first place. I’ve been so forthright with Chiri, I was worried about turning into number six.”

  Charmaine shrugged and went back to her research. That gave me an idea…

  “Anyway, Iris, yeah, tell me a little bit about yourself,” said David. “Previous jobs, that kind of thing. Have you worked in Fine Dining before, or…?”

  The two of them walked back into the kitchen, and I waited until I thought they were out of earshot before scooching over to the seat next to Charmaine. “Hey. Psst. Can you do a background check on someone using that?” I nodded towards her holopad.

  Charmaine looked up at me, curiously. “Probably. Why?”

  I flicked my ears toward the kitchen. “This Iris Miller woman. Vegan baker. Said she was waitlisted from the exchange program. Doesn't that sound suspicious?”

  The human exterminator stared at me with a blank expression. “I mean… it can be?” Charmaine said, slowly. “You worried she's on like hard drugs or something?”

  “Or crime, or Predator Disease, or… or…” I tried to think of what the worst thing a vegan predator--what a bizarre oxymoron!--might be plotting. “Or maybe she wants to trick someone into consenting to be eaten before she's willing to gorge on their flesh!”

  Chiri looked introspective. She had her theory of humans as strange fae creatures with self-imposed rules, after all. Charmaine just looked like she was struggling not to laugh. “Okay. I'm gonna… let me just take a quick look. We certainly did background checks on everyone who joined the exchange programs.” She flipped through some kind of information portal on her pad, scrolled down a list of names.

  She blinked.

  And then she started laughing hysterically.

  My ears perked up. “What? How bad is it!?”

  Charmaine was wiping tears from her eyes as she struggled to compose herself. “Nah, it's nothing. She's harmless.”

  “Well, what is it?” I asked. “If it's harmless, surely you can tell me, right?”

  Charmaine shook her head. “Nah, I think we've violated personal privacy enough for one day. Check social media or something if you're curious.”

  Of course a human wasn't going to help me dig up another human’s dangerous secrets. I shuffled back over towards Chiri as I tried to figure out what to do next. “Well, at least I found out that humans have social media,” I groused.

  Chiri turned her head to stare at me incredulously. “Don't you get, like, really angry when I double-check if Yotuls have things?”

  “Shut up,” I muttered. “For the safety of the herd, we have to figure out what this Iris Miller woman is up to.”

  Chiri sat upright in her seat, stretching to get a better view of the kitchen. “It looks like she's admiring the quality of the stand mixer,” she said. A sudden smirk bloomed on her face. “Oh, do Yotuls have stand mixers?”

  “Shut up!” I muttered. “Let me think. There has to be a way to…” I frantically searched through social media as best I could for ‘Iris Miller’. It wasn't quick. Apparently, it was a somewhat common human name. I had to skim through endless profiles until I found one who used to work at a bakery, and whose profile picture matched the human in the kitchen. Everything about her seemed normal! What in the world was her secret? Links to other platforms yielded more of the same. Pictures, videos, all proper and professional for a woman in her twenties living in a big city. Even the comments were just normal-sounding pleasantries. “You look great, Iris!” or “Fun times in the city!” or “Thanks for having us! Glad to finally meet GardenPartyIris in person!” My eyes narrowed at that last one. All one word? A nickname, maybe, or an internet handle? I frantically navigated back to the search engine and tapped out GardenPartyIris.

  All. Blocked. Content.

  “Got her,” I said. “Just have to figure out how to get past this…” My eyes drifted over towards the Gojid next to me. Had she truly gone native? If she was still a Gojid at heart, a true protector of the herd… well, a veteran exterminator couldn't have infiltrated humanity more adeptly than Chiri had. They'd given her access to all their secrets, after all. “Hey, Chiri,” I said sweetly. “You've got an uncensored holopad, haven't you?”

  “Look, I know there's a lot of it, but you really shouldn't be looking at human pornography during work hours, Rosi,” Chiri chided.

  I blushed emerald green. “Not that kind of uncensored! What the fuck!?” I sputtered. I winced. I really tried not to swear. It felt classless. But so was talking openly about… that! “No, I mean, you can see all the blocked content.” I flipped my holopad around. “See? I found Iris’s secret social media, but the whole thing is locked down to herbivores.”

  Chiri squinted at the page. “I dunno, Rosi. I'm a little conflicted about the ethics of snooping on a future coworker,” she said, but there was something in her tone that she wasn't giving a hard no. I just had to sell her on it.

  I tried to appeal to whatever was left of her Gojid nature. “Come on, you used to follow the Great Protector, right? Don't you want to make sure that, whatever this is, it's not a threat to the herd?”

  “It doesn't really sound like a threat to the herd, Rosi,” said Chiri, weighing her morals. “Iris said she was too eager, Charmaine said she was harmless…” She trailed off as something on the page caught her eye. She squinted. Her mouth worked silently as she tried her best to sound out the English letters on my pad above the subtitles. “Wait, what the fuck is that website name? Fur… Affinity?”

  “Huh?” I flipped it back around. “Yeah, I guess? I figured it was a salon or a beauty site or something. Why?”

  Chiri stared at me. “Humans don't have fur, Rosi! Why would they have a social media site for fur styling? The only reason David even owned fur shampoo when I showed up was because of his dog!”

  I frowned. “Maybe it's a pet grooming site, then?” I guessed. “But why would that be blocked? Because dogs are carnivorous?”

  Chiri shook her head, and started tapping away on her holopad. “Maybe. I dunno. I'm checking this out. Setting Iris aside, I'm curious now.”

  We sat together, staring at forbidden photograph after forbidden photograph, trying to make heads or tails of what we were seeing and failing. We were still at it when Iris walked out with a sweet-scented platter. “Hi!” she said, smiling. “I made some fresh waffles with berries and whipped cream, all vegan.” She set it down near us to try. It wasn't quite the visual explosion of David’s fake fish toast from the night before, but it was very colorful. I'd certainly worked up an appetite. “Whatcha guys looking at?”

  “Iris…” Chiri began tentatively. “Why were you dressing up in a Nevok costume even before first contact?”

  Iris’s eyes went wide in panic, and she turned as red as one of the strawberries she'd just served us.