While transcribing her grandmother’s old handwritten recipes to send to a friend, a girl finds out that the ratios and measurements by pure coincidence match up to a heavily-restricted code, and is immediately flagged for red alert investigation. -- Tergon
Tell me you're in a highly-monitored fascist polity without telling me you're in a highly-monitored fascist polity...
Okay. So. Gamgam's actually my great-great gramma on account of the CEO's Breed 'Em And Weed 'Em policy. Basically have the kids as quickly and as often as possible, skill test them for whatever and fit them into the work that will cause the business the least amount of trouble. While also breeding up the next generation.
On the positive side, workplaces also had state-mandated childcare and maternity maintenance was free.
Anyway, Gamgam's like in the Public Kitchens, but she taste-tests experimental recipes for her kids and the kids' kids at home. It's all big meals, but the bigger ones are made in vats. She's literate so she writes down proportions and timing on an as-you-go basis.
Best cook in Warehouse County, Employee of the Year five years' running, sort of deal. Got a block of apartments for her and the whole extended family. Including the corner bodega run by her cousin and the block med centre run by her son-in-law.
Aunty Fannie still looks after the centre park and herb garden, just so you know. You want some honey? Eggs? Apples? Apple cider mead? I can hook you up. We got extra.
Any-ba-hoozle... All of Gamgam's recipes are hand-written in this tome of a notebook. Stratified with colour-coded bookmarks based entirely on what you can score for cheap. My pal Jonie's just started on her Public Kitchen work and is totally in-the-woods L-O-S-T lost on what to do. Last one working it was a total incompetent.
Like executed for multiple counts of food poisoning, level of incompetent.
She's done step one - clean the fuck out of anything that can be salvaged and replace the rest. Now she's fixing to get some batches on.
No problem, I told her. I got my Gamgam's recipe book. Thing is, I'm in Information Tech and my pal Jonie washed out of the literacy program. She can barely read print. Can't handle Gamgam's cursive. Which, even at the best of times, is a bit of a spider scrawl.
A myopic spider-scrawl. Gamgam could fit in the words per line, if you get my drift. And a lot of recipes per page.
I scanned all of Gamgam's recipes and set to teaching my machine to read her handwriting. Sounds easier than it is, since I had to babysit the thing and correct it from time to time.
To help out Jonie, I sent her each recipe as it came out of my machine. She keeps them on her datareader and is still learning to trust the process. That's not the big deal.
The big deal is that Jonie and I got yoinked into the CEO's investigative services. Asking who else we were affiliated with, whether or not we were paid by anyone to pass messages along, what our plan was and so forth.
It took me four rounds and two doses of truth drugs to realise they thought we were up to some terrorist shit. Passing secret coded messages to each other for a purpose they couldn't figure out. I'm sure the Suits had grand visions of busting a drug ring or something of the sort. Until I showed them the scans of Gamgam's cookbook.
Turns out they couldn't read Gamgam's writing either. I had to prove that I could, and show them how my transcribing app worked.
I tell ya. The things that happen when you want to help a friend.
[Photo by Jan Behnisch on Unsplash]
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