The gala was an exercise in sterile, breathtaking opulence. The Grand Ballroom of the academy had been transformed into a minimalist void, a sleek black-and-white space that felt less like a party and more like the inside of a billionaire's spaceship. Sleek black tables, each set with a single, perfect white orchid, were arranged in a vast, geometric pattern. The air was cool and still, recycled to a perfect, scentless 22 degrees Celsius. The investors, a collection of men and women who looked like they had been sculpted from ice and ambition, mingled quietly, sipping mineral water from impossibly thin glasses. They didn't talk; they networked. They didn't laugh; they signaled approval.
On a stage at the front of the hall, bathed in a single, unforgiving spotlight, Chef Ayame stood at a transparent lectern. She looked serene, powerful, and utterly in control. She was delivering her keynote speech, her calm, melodic voice amplified through the hall's perfect sound system.
"...we are not merely feeding students," she said, her voice a silken ribbon of persuasion.
"We are eliminating the cognitive friction, the messy, inefficient emotional static that inhibits success. We are curating the future of human potential. A future without doubt. A future without conflict. A future without failure. Tonight, you will not just taste our food. You will taste the future itself."
Backstage, in the labyrinthine service corridors, the war for that future was about to begin. The air here was not cool and still; it was hot, humid, and smelled of steam, stress, and simmering rebellion.
"Okay, team, listen up," Sato's voice crackled in their cheap, disposable earpieces.
She was patched in from her command center: Broom Closet 7A, a tiny space she had commandeered and filled with a surprising amount of sophisticated surveillance equipment. She had a laptop displaying a dozen hacked security feeds and a tablet showing the building's schematics.
"Ayame's kitchen is plating the main course now. The Soylent-Nutrient Blocks. It looks as appetizing as it sounds. They'll be moving the trolleys to the service lifts in three minutes. That is our window. Three minutes. No more."
In their chaotic kitchen, Kenji's army stood ready. Their counter-banquet was loaded onto identical, stolen service trolleys. The air was thick with the defiant smells of rebellious gazpacho, surprisingly delicious beet splatter soup, and, of course, the wine-infused, paradox-laden aroma of the Scrambled Progenitor. Every student's face was a mask of nervous tension and fierce determination.
"Ren, what's your status? Talk to me," Kenji whispered into his mic, his thumb hovering over the transmit button on his own earpiece.
"Inside the kitchen," Ren's voice came back, tight with a tension that Kenji could feel through the speaker.
"It's… unreal. It's completely silent. No one is talking. The only sound is the clink of utensils on plates. They move like… like dancers, but with no music. They're plating the nutrient blocks with tweezers. Chef Ayame is watching them from a raised platform. Her eyes are everywhere. It's terrifying."
"Stay strong, Ren," Kenji murmured.
"Just be our eyes. Don't do anything risky."
"Diversion Alpha is a go," Sato's calm voice cut in.
On the main stage, the massive screen behind Ayame, which had been displaying the shimmering Ouroboros logo, flickered erratically. The logo distorted, pixelated, and was briefly replaced by a grainy, black-and-white close-up of a single, furiously whisking whisk before the entire screen went black. Ayame didn't flinch, her composure absolute, but Kenji saw two of her hulking, suit-wearing security guards detach from the wall and move swiftly towards the tech booth at the back of the hall.
"Two down," Sato reported.
"That's half her personal detail. Ren, are the trolleys moving?"
"They're on the move!" Ren hissed.
"Six trolleys, twenty plates each. They're entering the main service corridor. They're heading for the south service lift!"
"Go, go, go!" Kenji commanded into his mic.
"Team, execute!"
The door to the chaos kitchen burst open, and the Society for Culinary Deconstruction surged into the service corridor, a flurry of white uniforms and barely suppressed panic. It was a clumsy, near-silent ballet of organized chaos. They intercepted the six trolleys from Ayame's kitchen at a predetermined intersection, a known camera blind spot that Sato had discovered. With frantic, fumbling hands, they began the switch. Plates of gray, perfectly seared nutrient blocks were lifted off, and plates of the rustic, lumpy, purple-ish Scrambled Progenitor were put in their place.
It was going too smoothly. Kenji felt a knot of dread tighten in his stomach. Smooth was not how his life worked.
His dread was justified. A bulky security guard, one of the main academy staff, not Ayame's personal goons, appeared at the far end of the hall. He hadn't been on Sato's patrol schedule; he must have been on a bathroom break. He saw the swap happening. He saw two sets of identical trolleys and a group of students frantically moving plates between them. His eyes widened, his brain struggling to process the bizarre scene. He frowned, his hand reaching for the radio on his shoulder.
He never made the call.
Emi, the quiet girl, the one who whispered to her gazpacho, saw the threat. Without a moment's hesitation, she darted forward, breaking away from the group. She held a small tasting spoon of her bright red, rebellious gazpacho.
"Excuse me, sir?" she said, her voice a perfect blend of innocence and shyness.
She held the spoon up to him.
"I'm so sorry to bother you, but… I'm a first-year, and I'm terrified my soup is unbalanced. Could you possibly tell me if it needs more salt?"
The guard, utterly bewildered by the sudden request, paused. His training had not prepared him for this. He looked from the suspicious scene down the hall to the earnest, pleading face of the small student in front of him. It was a non-threatening request. He was a man of authority. He sighed, a "what-is-this-world-coming-to" kind of sigh. He absently took the spoon and tasted the soup.
His entire body went rigid. His eyes, which had been dull with boredom, rolled back in his head for a fraction of a second. A look of pure, unadulterated, life-altering bliss crossed his face. He had never tasted anything like it. It was cold and hot, sweet and acidic, smooth and chunky all at once. It tasted of sun-drenched tomatoes and angry peppers and a hint of something he could only describe as… defiance. It was a flavor that had conflict. He stood there, stunned into absolute silence, his hand frozen halfway to his radio, his mind completely lost as he contemplated the very nature of tomatoes and the meaning of his own life.
"The switch is complete!" Tanaka hissed.
"All teams, fall back! Back to the kitchen!" Kenji commanded. "Emi! Now!"
Emi gave the catatonic guard a polite little bow and scurried back to the group. They vanished back into their kitchen seconds before the guard's brain rebooted. He shook his head as if waking from a dream, looked down the now-empty corridor, frowned, and then, looking at the empty spoon in his hand, vaguely wondered where he could get more of that soup.
In the main hall, the lights dimmed slightly as impeccably dressed waiters began filing out from the service doors, carrying the plates to the expectant investors. On stage, Chef Ayame was wrapping up her speech, her benevolent, goddess-like smile firmly back in place.
"And now," she announced, gesturing gracefully to the plates being set before her distinguished guests, "I invite you to taste the future. A meal scientifically designed to open your minds, to quiet the unnecessary noise, and to allow you to see the world with perfect, unclouded clarity."
The lead investor, the stern-looking Frau Schmidt, looked down at her plate. She frowned slightly. She had been expecting a precise, geometric block of nutrients. Instead, she was looking at a rustic, purple-ish, lumpy pile of something that looked suspiciously like… scrambled eggs. Intrigued by the sheer audacity of it, she picked up her fork.
The cameras of Kenji's memory, of the academy's history, of fate itself, zoomed in. The tines of the fork pierced the scrambled mass. She lifted it to her mouth. The chapter of Ayame's ambition was about to end, and the first bite of the rebellion was about to be taken.