What is Food

Katherine climbed off Maksym and settled beside him on the grass. The Weapon-Net felt like a distant radio station fading in and out, garbled error codes dissolving into white noise.

She felt naked in a way the flannel jacket couldn’t fix.

“Hey.” Maksym sat up. “You’re shaking.”

“My thermoregulation is nominal.” She commented, adjusting her flannel jacket.

“Nah, you’re definitely shaking because you’re freaked out. Come here.”

“I don’t… normally freak out. This is my first freak out,” she commented, struggling to ground herself.

He pulled her against his side. The warmth of his hug felt grounding in a way her remaining sensors couldn’t quantify. “What’s bothering you? Let’s chat about it.”

“The Emperor of Humanity crashed a warship into the moon,” she said flatly.

“Yu-huh. Our lovely Luna got smooched by your very aggressive warship.” Maksym waved a hand upward. 

A new smudge marred the grey face of Mare Tranquillitatis, wriggling unnervingly in Katherine’s magitek sensors, an insanely entropic dimensional shear which the null human beside her couldn’t see. 

“See? It’s a celestial hickey.” He added cheerfully.

A laugh burst from her v-cast hexagrams. He squeezed her waist once again. “Marshmallows?”

“Our entire fleet has been knocked down and your proposed response to manage such a shock is… more marshmallows?”

“Yes.” He held up two marshmallows on a stick. “Jumbo campfire edition!”

He impaled two more and held them over the fire, rotating them. Katherine quietly watched the sugar caramelize, golden and bubbling.

He pulled the stick back, presenting the well-grilled golden snacks. Katherine’s digital mouth split open, revealing the organic one beneath. He placed the first marshmallow against her lips.

She bit it off the stick. Sugar and gelatin dissolved across her tongue, sending flavor data through the Kawathra-designed taste receptors.

“Good?” he asked.

“G-great,” she let out shyly, chewing thoughtfully and swallowing. “Incredible! I… love it. It’s, uhm… My… first food.”

“What?” He stared at her. “Are you pulling my leg? Surely you’ve eaten food before?!”

“Not really,” she confessed. “My, uhm, second drink type was the beer you gave me.”

“Second drink?! What was your first then?! Do you exist on… Like, fleet-dispensed protein shakes or something?”

“UwUs,” she said. “Parasites that live in dragonheart reactor cores. They breed extremely rapidly and occasionally there are runts, corrupted, sick ones who can’t even move and are therefore useless to the prads and Commanders to chase and snack on. Gun-units scrape them out of reactor pipes and crush them into pulp. Then the juice is separated from the dried tissues. The dry stuff is made into protein crunchy bars which the Frontenachii Omnicorp sells across the colonies. Their processed juice is what sustained me for the past twenty years.”

“Dang,” he commented. “What did UwU juice even taste like?”

“Like nothing at all,” she revealed. “I… didn’t have taste buds until today.”

Maksym stared at her for over four seconds. The fire sent more sparks spiraling upward with a crackle.

“Kasia,” he said finally. “You’re seriously telling me you existed for twenty years on reactor-pipe parasite juice and never once tasted food?”

“That is correct.”

“And your first meal in your entire life is a campfire marshmallow I shoved into your face?”

“Yes.”

“Kurwa! This is a serious culinary emergency that must be fixed ASAP!” Maksym pulled out the package of hot dogs from the duffel and skewered several on sticks. “Behold! The humble frankfurter, a cornerstone of American backyard civilization. Contents: mystery meat, preservatives and the unshakable optimism of a nation!”

“Mystery meat?” She tilted her head.

“Nobody knows, Kasia! Scientists have tried, philosophers have debated. The hot dog keeps its dark secrets.”

“I could easily analyze the molecular composition using my hand scanner hexagram.”

“And demolish the mystique? No way! Some things are sacred. No scanning, only tasting!”

The hot dogs sizzled over the coals, skin blistering and splitting. Maksym gradually rotated them, explaining the critical importance of char distribution and the cardinal sin of letting one side suffer in raw-ness.

“See?” He finally exhumed one hot dog. “Marvelous, even coverage. The art of campfire hot-doggery!”

“A cylinder of animal protein experiencing Maillard reactions.”

“Such technical jargon. Open mouth to accept nom!”

Maksym held out the food. Katherine opened her jaws wide and then bit the top third clean off the stick. Wild sensations detonated across her tongue. Salt, fat, savoury, smoke and other deeply primal flavours rushed through her. It was… incredible. Every flavour was a first. Every molecule, a revelation.

“Mhmmmrmmmm,” she moaned, arching her entire body as her shoulder displays erupted in animated hot dogs wearing tiny top hats, parading across her screens in a conga line.

“Good, yeah?”

“The goodest ‘mhhhfgnn’ of my operational existence. Ahhh, my screens are going wild,” she panted out, tail wagging, licking her lips, tongue glowing bright pink-violet. 

“He he, dancing top-hat wieners,” he grinned, tapping the central screen. “Now that’s a sentence I never expected to say about my girlfriend’s chest.”

“Feed me more,” she requested.

“Can do!”

He fed her the rest of the first hot dog and then presented the second one to her mouth. Katherine consumed it in a single bite of a large mouth, chewing slowly. A low vibration rolled through her entire body.

“The Kat-purr returns in greater numbers,” Maksym crowed.

“Mrmmm.” She let out.

“Ah! I got distracted by your lascivious purrage! Wait till you try ‘em with mustard and ketchup!”

“They’re better with such? Do we…” She let out languidly.

“Kasia, I’m Polish! We bring condiments to funerals!” Maksym declared, producing two squeeze bottles from his large backpack.

He drew a zigzag line of yellow mustard and a parallel stripe of ketchup across a freshly fire-burned hot dog.

Katherine snagged it from the stick. The displays on her body momentarily settled on the Polish eagle coat of arms, then exploded into hot-dog shaped fireworks.

“You know…” she let out. “Nobody’s ever fed me before. It’s… really nice.”

“Feeding other people once you’ve mastered the fire-grilling is the essence of camping.” He stated with a sage look, cracking open a beer.

Katherine’s organic heart thumped. The Maksym tree in her neuralscape grew three new branches simultaneously, each one laden with leaves shaped like tiny marshmallows, hot dogs, ketchup and mustard bottles.

She reached into the bag and pulled out a marshmallow. Skewered it on a stick. Held it over the fire and rotated it at exact angular velocity required for uniform browning. She pulled the sufficiently toasted marshmallow from the flame and held it to his lips. “Open.”

He bit the marshmallow off the stick. Sugar stretched in a thin, glistening thread between his mouth and the stick before snapping.

“Ho,” he said with his mouth full. “Robot-waifu grilled marshmallow hits great.”

She fed him another marshmallow, then they both cooked more hot dogs and fed each other. 

…

Across the Earth the Third Celestial Starfall Fleet was learning the true meaning of the phrase “fucked around and found out.” Katherine didn’t participate in their suffering. She was melting from within from pure happiness.

Eventually, the wind from the glaciers picked up. The fire had burned low, coals glowing deep orange-red, and Katherine’s thermoregulation alerts pinged her about Maksym’s dropping core temperature.

“Tent,” she announced, standing and pulling the human upright.

“Is this the part where the alien cyborg carries me across the threshold?”

“My carrying capacity is rated for four hundred times your weight… So… Yes.” She lifted him in a bridal carry.

The tent zipper opened via a swift nudge of her tail and she ducked through the flap, depositing Maksym onto the inflatable mattress with a bounce.

“Oof.” He sprawled across the mattress, flannel jacket askew. “Showoff.”

“Having an extra appendage is handy, yes.” Katherine sealed the tent mesh flap with the tail and knelt on the mattress beside him. The interior was intimately cozy and large enough for her legs to stretch comfortably. Dying firelight filtered through the mesh fabric in amber waves, turning the nylon walls into a warm, glowing cocoon.

“Kasia?”

“Mm.”

“Can we do this again tomorrow?”

“Camping?”

“All the things. Flying. Hot dogs. Marshmallows. Staring at the moon. Laughing at your screens doing weird things. Especially… Kissing.”

The gold on her displays softened to amber. “I would like to repeat this sequence many times.”

“Many?”

“Indefinitely… that is if you don’t get bored of me.”

“I don’t think that I could ever get bored of you. You’re the most outlying outlier. Even in your alien fleet… you’re an outlier, yes?”

“Mhmmm. I supposed I am.” 

He rolled onto his side to face her. She mirrored the movement. The mattress protested. Their noses were close enough for the heat of his breath to fog the edge of her hexaglass snout.

He kissed her. Katherine shivered. The displays ran through languid spirals of rose and crimson.

His fingers traveled lower. Across the collar bone region, over the cooling lattice. He paused. Squeezed experimentally.

“The cooling lattice thanks you for the compression test,” she managed with a chirp-mewl.

“Uh-huh, sure. Cooling lattice.” He squeezed again. “Very important thermal management hardware.”

“Critical. Absolutely essential.”

His hand moved further. Across the curve of her waist, where hexagonal mesh transitioned to the softer, warmer organic materia. Katherine’s breath hitched, responding to the sensations.

“You are soooo soft here,” he observed, fingers tracing the boundary line. “Almost like human skin, maybe softer.”

“Kawathra designed the organic bits for maximum tactile sensitivity,” Katherine heard herself say, each word arriving with increasing difficulty. “The nerve density in such areas is approximately four times higher than in the plated regions.”

“Lovely.” His thumb drew a slow circle along the boundary. Katherine’s entire left side erupted in goosebumps.

“You have goosebumps!” Maksym declared.

“An aaaah… autonomous piloerection response!” She trailed off, wiggling as his thumb completed another circle.

His hand moved to her back, finding the strip of bare organic skin along her lower spine, below the Anti-grav ring containing plates. Katherine moan-chirped loudly. The displays on her body flashed with “more please” showing blooming roses. “You are… methodically mapping my sensory responses.”

“I’m an engineer. We map things. Standard operating procedure!”

His exploration continued. Across her hip, where hexagonal plating gave way to the organic curve of her lower body. Down the outer edge of her thigh.

Then his hand stopped.

Katherine felt his fingers pause at a spot on her lower abdomen where the hexagonal mesh was denser, smoother, and distinctly different from the surrounding panels and then gave way to reveal…

“Kasia.”

“Yes?”

“Is this what I think it is?”

Her displays went magenta for the second time in their relationship. “Please specify what you think it is, so I can confirm or deny with appropriate embarrassment.”

His fingers traced the outline, making her squirm. Then they moved upward, back to her chest.

“Hold on.” His fingers suddenly retreated. “Hold on, hold on, hold on.”

“I am holding.”

“Kasia.” His voice became very focused. “What is this I am feeling? Are you telling me. You have. Everything?”

“Define ‘everything.’”

“Oh, come on!”

“Fine!” The magenta intensified to a shade approaching ultraviolet. “Yes! I have… comprehensive anatomical features. Kawathra designed my body to be… functionally complete! Organic integration includes all primary and secondary sexual characteristics appropriate to a humanoid pradavarian female template!”

“Where have they been before?!” He demanded.

“Locked behind a hexamesh cover,” she let out. “F-functionally ssimilar to how Omnid phase-shift operates to cover sexual organs.”

“You have CENSORED MODE?!”

“Y-yes!” She revealed.

For once in his relentlessly hyperactive existence, the Polish engineer with the wanderlust gene and the unstoppable mouth said absolutely nothing.