Chapter 6 - Livestock
The note changed Owen more than the explosion did.
He stared at STOP FEEDING OUR LIVESTOCK until his hands shook.
"Same phrase," he said.
Madam Sato's eyes sharpened. "From the warehouse?"
Owen nodded.
His partner, Luis Mendoza, had died in a fire at a cold-storage facility owned by HearthLife Logistics, a subsidiary Eli had never heard of.
Grant Mercer had.
NourishNow's business card listed HearthLife as its parent company.
Eli felt the mystery tighten.
Madam Sato wanted him to stop investigating.
"That is not cowardice," she said while they hid inside Reggie's garage. "It is arithmetic. You are Ember Body Two. Whoever threw that chopstick pierced reinforced brick from eighty yards."
Reggie held up the weapon with pliers. "So, evil kung fu caterers?"
"Basically," Eli said.
"Cool. Terrible. But cool."
Owen explained the warehouse. Luis had discovered pallets of emergency food being routed into a sealed basement. The fire started the night he photographed them.
"Police called it electrical," Owen said. "My captain told me to let it go."
Madam Sato examined the chopstick.
"Ash Pavilion technique."
"Consortium?" Eli asked.
"Ex-consortium. Banished thirty years ago for cultivating Starvation Qi."
The system chimed.
[Forbidden Path identified: Starvation Cultivation]
[Method: Increase hunger, harvest desperation, refine into power.]
[Compatibility with host: 0%]
[System comment: Good.]
Eli almost smiled.
Then he remembered his mother.
"If they target food programs, clinics, shelters..."
"They create populations dependent on contaminated meals," Madam Sato said.
Owen looked sick. "Livestock."
The word settled heavily.
Eli had solved one question. The Nine Banquet Consortium had not cursed his mother.
Now he knew the people who had were worse.
Reggie opened a city procurement database on an ancient laptop that sounded like a lawn mower.
"NourishNow has contracts with twenty-three clinics, eleven shelters, public schools, senior centers..."
He stopped scrolling.
"Man."
Eli leaned closer.
One new contract began Monday.
Seattle Public Schools summer meal program.
Estimated daily meals: 38,000.
Madam Sato whispered something in Japanese that did not sound polite.
The system displayed a red quest.
[Emergency Quest: Prevent Mass Appetite Tax deployment.]
[Deadline: 72 hours.]
[Failure consequence: estimated 114,000 lifespan-days harvested in first month.]
Eli swallowed.
"I can't cook thirty-eight thousand lunches."
[Correct.]
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
[Become someone who can stop the kitchen that can.]
A new objective appeared.
[Enter NourishNow Central Kitchen.]
[Steal the master seasoning seal.]
Reggie grinned.
"Heist?"
Owen said, "Absolutely not."
Madam Sato sighed.
Eli looked at the three people who had somehow become his team in less than a day.
"We're doing a heist."
His phone buzzed.
A text from his mother.
Eli, a nice man from NourishNow came by. He offered you a job.
There was a photo attached.
Grant Mercer sat at Eli's kitchen table.
Across from Mei.
Smiling.
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