Mad-Sci-Soc

by Arrand Pritchard

  This story is extracted from the cobwebs, the origin of Gruyère Cheese. You can go check it yourself.

  Gruyère cheese originated in the Alpine region between France and Switzerland around the 11th century. Legend has it that a traveller taught a peasant family how to make the cheese up in the hills of Riaz, at the forest's edge, with a magnificent Alpine view. The traveller knocked on the door of the dilapidated hut belonging to a group of poor shepherds and cow herders. The matriarch of the family was called Cathiau. The family had three skinny goats and one “bagne” (a puny cow). The family were bemused to receive a visitor since nobody usually trekked in their direction. The traveller lost no time in teaching the family how to make two things: huge quantities of Gruyere cheese and strong, delicious wine. The family then became rich and unfortunately, absolute "avinieros" (drunkards). Nearby farmers and residents were totally confused how this family had fine wine (with no vineyard) and an abundance of milk, cream and cheese with only a bagne and three goats.

  According to the story, only one local was able to give any insight into the mystery. Crépin à la Ratta, an itinerant cobbler, was asked to come to the house to repair their shoes since they were then wealthy enough to afford such services. Cathiau, the mother avinieros, was sitting near the stove, with a butter churner, churning. To him, it seemed there was nothing in the churn and yet she continually poured a liquid from the churn into a pot on the stove. When a neighbour knocked on the door to buy some cheese, it distracted Cathiau, whereupon the cobbler quickly took the chance to glance inside the churn. Of course, the churn was empty. Empty save for a square of yellowed parchment he discovered attached underneath the lid which he took and hid in his shirt as he heard Cathiau returning. As Cathiau renewed her churning, Crépin felt a thick liquid begin to ooze under his shirt. After a few seconds her realised the parchment was squirting out a hot cream of some sort. He screamed and threw the cursed note to the floor... and hot, cheesey goo spouted from the spot! Cathiau stopped her action, looked inside the churn, and scowled. Nothing! No cream! No note! She looked disgustedly at Crépin, who sat frozen, like a "serac" (a column of ice). She cursed him violently.

  The cobbler was sworn to secrecy and left under threat of the most evil witchcraft. He wisely held his tongue for years and only revealed his tale after Cathiau's death.

  By this time Cathiau's family had become so wealthy that such stories were relegated to folklore. The family was so rich, in fact, that her grandson, Gruerius, could afford to build a castle in the green pre-Alpine foothills close to their former family home. Gruerius was named after the word for crane (“grue” in French). Since in those days babies were supposedly delivered by cranes and left under bushes, the name was like the modern equivalent of naming a child “Bump”. Anyhow, this little joke by the avinieros inspired the name Gruyère and the family heraldic shield of intertwining cranes. The castle, the Château de Gruyère, still towers above the medieval town of Fribourg today. By 1138, Gruerius was known as the Count de Gruyère. According to historical records, in 1196, Fribourg was a bustling market town with a central street and city walls, the peasant ancestry of the Gruyères was all but forgotten.

  Gruyère cheese is still made in the same valley, more than one thousand years later, using the same methods and including the same secret ingredient!

  Unfortunately, the secret recipe for Cathiau's wine was lost after just one generation. The majority of the family having drunk themselves to death, taking the secret of the manufacture of their wine with them.

  ***

  Friday, January 25, 2123. Four hours later

  “So what are you doing for Valentine's Day?” beamed Jason. Jason was my old base-jumping buddy and former Counter-Punk-Heavy-Water Music-Programmer. He had moved up in the world and was now an actuary working at the Icarus Insurance Company that specialised in the extreme sports and crowd-event market. I had joked with him in the past about “selling out” and we cackled about that; but really, he had sold out. Terri loved to point out to Jason that if he had insured me before my leg breaking base jump, she and I would have never got together. She meant that too, I imagine, from the daggers she would direct at me after saying it.

  “We're doing something...” I said nodding across the table inarticulately.

  Terri looked at me. Her high eyebrows rising even higher to ask silently, “Oh really?”

  The question had caught me unawares. After the rush of arriving at the upmarket Rodentia restaurant, the how-have-you-been stories and food ordering, the conversation had descended into general chit chat between Jason, Naoki, his asian wife with a fox fursona, (I will explain later) and Terri.

  My thoughts drifted back to the inconclusive probability modelling and game-play undertaken in the afternoon at Mad-Sci-Soc until my calendar app alerted me to the diner date arrangement. Mad-Sci-Soc had given me… “Responsibility”. This was a new found sensation that I didn’t feel I had encountered before. If I could tell Terri about Karmen's Max-centric improbability model would this new burden be lifted? How could I tell her in the restaurant? Uh-ho, what was that question? Valentine’s day?

  “Big. We're doing something big!” I said, continuing to nod.

  “Can you let us in on your plans?” asked Jason with a smirk.

  “It's a surprise!” I said. “I can't say anything more. It would spoil the surprise.”

  Terri looked heavenwards.

  “Ah sweet!” said Jason.

  Naoki was dressed in a designer fabricated furry, fox costume, complete with ears, tail and holographic paws, giggled in response.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him realising that he was merely aiming for reciprocity.

  “We've booked a day in the Sleepy Hollow Resort over in the Bronx,” said Jason, gripping Naoki, who giggled again.

  The Sleepy Hollow Resort was a holographic vacation resort.

  “A day?” I said, looking over sharply and realising my neck still hurt.

  “A whole day?” asked Terri.

  “Yes, a whole day,” he replied. Naoki cuddled up to him and he stroked (“skritched”) her under her chin.

  “What location?” asked Terri.

  “We go to forest location,” piped Naoki. “We run in forest.” And she made a running motion with her paw-morphed hands.

  “We'll also swing from trees. Swim in the lake and go rock climbing.” added Jason.

  “Just the two of you?” asked Terri.

  “We've wanted some alone time for quite a while,” said Jason staring into Naoki's big eye-lashed eyes. She giggled again.

  “You've worked out the risks on that?” I asked, making a dig at his job. (Since actuaries evaluate and advise on insurance risk).

  “Ok, I know it's not extreme sports, Aaron, but don't knock it. I still get my thrills.”

  “It does sound fun,” said Terri.

  I looked at her strangely. When had Terri ever had fun?

  “I'm not knocking it. No. Sounds like a pleasant way to spend the day,” I said, trying not to say to the former extreme sports fanatic what I really thought, “Sell out! Sell out!”

  “I know it is a lot of money. But hey, what is money for if it is not for buying a little luxury once in a while,” said Jason.

  Actually it was not the cost I was referring to, but his choice of such a safe, disneyesque corporate pastime. The fact that it was also amazingly expensive was incidental. To me anyway but I'm sure the reason Jason repeated the cost was to maximise bragging rights.

  A heavy-duty, retro, metal robot delivered a tray of food in the way food always used to be served in traditional restaurants with robot waiters. The robot jiggled its way to the table in micro steps, and seemed to sigh with relief when the tray was carefully lowered onto the table. It uncoupled itself from the tray and slipped away backwards out of our little booth. The plate covers then performed their traditional aerial dance. They seem to magically levitate from the tray, providing a synchronous, private artistic “reveal”
of food presentation (camera-ready for uploading to your InstaCrumb photo page), before zooming back to the kitchen. The reveal seemed unnecessary since placement of food for each guest was always random and plates always had to be switched amongst the diners.

  While this unnecessary formality played out, I thought about why I was not comfortable around Jason, Naoki and Terri all together. Individually was fine, but not at the same time. The wealth gap between Jason and myself was one reason but it was mainly to do with the fact that I had introduced Naoki to Jason several years previously. It was before I was banned from virtual worlds when Naoki and I were virtualistas, hanging out in Furtopia World. She was a fox-woman and I was a rat-man. Ratticus Norvegicus, was what I called myself but I looked too much like Mickey Mouse instead of the tough guy I wanted to portray. We finally met in real life, when I moved to New York, and I had been surprised to find Naoki carried over her virtual identity into the her real world fursona. It was more than just weekend cosplay, it was a life-style choice. Quite a LOL at the time. While yiffy in the virtual world, we were never anything but friends (“no-yiff”) in the real world, Terri remains unaware of this. I don’t know why I never told her. I guess I didn’t want her to know about my teenagery rat identity, worried she might tease me about it mercilessly.

  While I ploughed into my mushroom pie and potatoes, Terri her goat cheese salad and Naoki her forest offerings of nuts, berries and olives, Jason proceeded to wind me up between scoops of Rodentia's famous noodles.

  “So how's traction in the freelance researching market?” Jason asked, starting innocuously enough.

  “Fine. It pays the rent,” I said. I glanced over to Terri, she was focused on her food, determined to ignore me.

  “Able to hack the old cob webs without being siem-ed?” (“Siem” is a geeky term for being detected by a SIEM (Security Incident and Event Management system) which monitors for unauthorised intrusion into computer systems).

  “It gets easier all the time,” I lied.

  “So your change of address... No link between your job and your move? I thought you may have had to, you know, clean up, change location... protect your identity. A dilemma between the net and getting netted?”

  I looked over at Terri and she was patting her lips with a napkin and gave a gentle head shake to inform me that I should avoid controversy, in particular on the subject of fridges.

  “No. Just part of the terms of the lease. We get cheap rent but sometimes we have to move out at short notice. We were fed up with the place anyway. Things breaking down and such,” I said casually.

  “Your new place is a bit further out though? Any problems there?”

  “The location is fine. But the living room is a bit small. Although there's plenty of storage for my cardboard box collection. How's your food?”

  “Yummy-scrummy,” said Naoki enthusiastically.

  “I just wondered whether freelance research was the new extreme sport?” Jason continued.

  “Not a lot of excitement there, no,” I conceded.

  “Despite the legal hazards and the long robotic arm of the law?” said Jason sarcastically.

  “I'm more counter culture than I am illegal,” I lied. I used the term “counter culture” deliberately since it echoed back to the day when Jason raged that his Counter-Punk-Heavy-Water band was, in fact, anti-punk, and not, as I had interpreted, neo-punk, and thus destroying all my rationale for following him to New York.

  “So no buzz there then. Or perhaps it’s the cardboard box collecting? Is that where you get your kicks nowadays?” Jason said pointedly.

  “Oh you know, I do stuff...”

  “Like what? That would interest me. You know, like, not only interesting on a personal level but also professionally. It's important for business. I need to know how people extract their adrenaline rush. Yours in particular, old buddy, would excite my mitochondria.”

  I chewed my pie. “Old buddy”? He was being sarcastic. Perhaps he was trying to respond to my unspoken condemnation of his sell out to the corporatocracy. Or maybe he was trying to justify his undoubtedly superior social position. While every superhero reality TV show showed me the dangers of leaking information that could uncover my superhero identity, I still did not want Jason, of all people, to think that I had merely become a minor cog in the greasy machine; albeit a small and misshapen a cog. I let slip some information...

  “Oh, you know... a bit of martial arts, jet-packing, that sort of thing...” I said offhandedly.

  “Martial arts? What school? I think Icarus has the NY market.” (Did I tell you that Jason works for Icarus Extreme Sport Insurance Company?)

  “It's a university club. Terri introduced me to it,” I said but Terri, again, refused to look at me.

  “Oh... right,” said Jason. “They have insurance?”

  “I'm sure.”

  “And jet packing? Sounds a bit outside of your price range.”

  “Same club. Same arrangement.”

  “And what do they charge?”

  I looked over at Terri who was biting into a slice of almond-enriched bread. “This is fantastic,” she mumbled, her mouth full, pointing to the baked item, pretending she was not listening to the conversation.

  “There's crypto-currency and a barter system. Quid-pro-quo,” I said.

  “This sounds fantastic, Aaron. Perhaps you can get me in. I've always fancied piloting a jet pack.”

  “I'll ask,” I said swallowing hard on a largely un-chewed crust of pie.

  “What's the name of this club?”

  “Mad...” I started.

  “Ah,” Terri interrupted suddenly.

  “Mad-ah?” I replied to Terri.

  “Mad-a-line?” said Terri.

  “Madeline?” said Jason confused. Even Naoki had stopped nibbling.

  “Madeline Martial Arts,” said Terri.

  “And they do jet packing?” asked Jason.

  “Madeline's Martial Arts and Jet Packing... Extreme Sports Training... Investment Club. So they call it... Majestic.” I said unconvincingly.

  “Martial Arts and Jet Packs? That doesn't really make much sense for one club...” mused Jason.

  “Majestic 12,” said Terri. “They have 12 extreme sports. So they call it Majestic-12. Or MJ-12 for short.”

  “And Madeline?” asked Naoki scratching one of her foxy ears.

  “Oh... she runs the club. So we call it her club.” said Terri.

  Jason was chewing on his noodles and pointed towards Terri with his spork. “This is one of these University gimmicky-type club names, right?”

  “Right!” we both agreed.

  ***

  Friday, January 25, 2123. One hour later.

  Terri and I thankfully, and soberly, waved goodbye to Jason and Naoki who were clearly intoxicated by their vintage alcho-pops. While Terri received pleasant farewells from the pair, Jason bear-hugged me while uttering I-love-you-bro. Naoki gave me a, hopefully, rabies-free, wet lick. Leaving in separate auto-taxis, we saw that Naoki's foxy tail had become trapped by the taxi's sliding door and leaving it exposed and in for a mucky makeover on the journey home.

  “A fabricated furry costume... I think it was a Dior. It must cost a bit,” I said, rubbing my sore neck, relieved that I could speak freely in the driverless machine.

  “It makes more of a statement if you wear fabricated clothes. Especially those aligned to your lifestyle,” sighed Terri sitting opposite me, slumped across the back seat.

  “Don't you think that maybe it is a bit hypocritical, the consumerist-conservationist message dyslexic?” I said, repeating a mantra Terri had taught me some years previously.

  “It's no more hypocritical than anything else anyone does on this crazy planet,” she said switching her side window to “transparent” to peer out into the busy night-time traffic of automatic vehicles.

  “I think there are degrees of hypocrisy and Jason and Naoki are nearing televangelist levels. I don't think I can stand being out with them.�
�

  “That suits me fine. Just line up some other bozos to go out with to Rodentia.” Rodentia was Terri's favourite restaurant. All the food was guaranteed organic and the tea tasted dianegiastic (apparently). We had no other friends that could afford the place. Heck, not even we could afford it. At least Jason provided a subsidy by paying the hyper-inflated drinks bill.

  “In the meantime,” she added. “Hasn't Conrad talked to you about avoiding mentioning, um... selected activities at Mad-Sci-Soc?”

  “You mean, like the first rule of Mad-Sci-Soc is that you don't talk about Mad-Sci-Soc?” I retorted.

  “About discretion...” she said sternly.

  “I wasn't going to mention geek-central to an Extreme-Sports Insurance Salesmen. Not without mega-embarrassment. Even though you may have thought I was going to say Mad-Sci-Soc, I wouldn’t have done. Besides I thought we were the A-Team, the way we handled that conversation,” I said lamely.

  “You've been part of the inner workings of the club just a few days and you’re already blabbing all about it. Why didn't you also tell them about your psychic powers?” she said sarcastically.

  “Careful these taxis have ears!”

  “The taxis are probably the safest place to talk. Outside there are police-drones, spy-drones and at home countless microphones and potential for wiretaps. How do you think the supercomputers work out the pre-crime? At least in an auto-taxi there's supposedly legal privacy protection. I'm just bringing this up because... when was the first time you heard about the club from me!?”

  “A couple of weeks ago?”

  “Right. I didn't just blab it out.”

  “No.”

  “That's discretion.”

  “Sure. But only now am I starting to figure you out.”

  “Oh good. It's about time.”

  “How could I have done it any sooner? You were so discrete,” I said, with an unnecessary edge.

  “Go frack yourself, Aaron. I've never promised a full life history,” she retorted.

  “Well that's true enough, though...” I started defensively but was cut off.

  “I'm moving out. I'm moving out this weekend,” she said suddenly.