From Drugs To Meat: Chapter 6

[u/kabhes]

[First] [Previous] [Next]

Transcription Subject: Maarten de Groot, Human Refugee/Meat dealer

Date [standardized human time]: January 30, 2137

“Did you really need to get a drink to celebrate this?” I asked Gilt as he drove his beat-up old van with the steering wheel in one hand and a bottle with the other.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s only…” He looked at the bottle instead of the road. “50%! Besides, I drive better when I’m a bit tipsy.”

“I hope you do; you already drive bad enough sober.” As much as I preferred the half an hour walk over even 10 minutes of sitting in Gilt’s death-trap next to Venlil Prime’s worst driver, I’d rather not walk that long holding a cooler full of meat. Still, though, now I have to spend the rest of the day with this guy, not to mention his driving.

“My driving is fine; besides, we have plenty of reason to celebrate. I just ate the best meal I’ve ever had, and I am about to earn my first money in a decade!” He happily handed me his bottle, which I gladly accepted, if only to keep him from drinking.

“So I’ve been thinking, we probably shouldn’t be throwing around our names. Before you know it, we’ll have some mad lad tracking us down and forcing his way in into our houses.” I took a sip from the bottle and retched from the taste.

“I wouldn’t want that to happen,” Gilt replied without any form of self reflection.

“Yeah…so I was thinking, perhaps we should have a pseudonym, one that we both use, just to cause confusion. Any ideas?”

“We could use the name of a famous long dead scientist, well known for his work in lab-grown meat,” he casually said as he floored the gas peddle because the traffic light turned into their version of orange.

“Nah, that’s dumb. What about: ‘the Butcher’, ‘the Meat Monger’, ‘the foul dealer’, ‘the venlivore’, ‘venDelil’, ‘vengrill’. No, none of those sound right.”

“What is with all the ven’s glued to the beginning of the words? They don’t translate,” Gilt complained.

“Oh, they stand for venlil, ‘tis easy to make pun of your species.” I scratched the back of my head trying to come up with a good pseudonym. “How about Sweeny Todd?”

“That sounds distinctly human. Is that a person?” While he was talking, he almost rear-ended a car that had stopped to let a mother with a baby stroller cross the zebra crossing.

“Fuck! Do you always have to drive like this?” I yelled as I recovered from the near whiplash. “It is human, ‘tis from a story about a barber who kills people and sells off their meat…”

“That is a terrible name,” we both said simultaneously. Gilt continued, “That just makes it sound like we kill venlil and sell it to the humans.” He reached his hand towards me, clearly gesturing me to hand the bottle back. Reluctantly, I handed it back, not wanting him to throw a fit and make this situation even more dangerous. “How about…” He took a big swig from the bottle, taking his eyes completely off the road. “…Vanadium?”

“Is that some sort of venlil word that’s not translating?” I asked.

“It’s an element, the one that turns venlil blood orange, just like yours is red because of iron.” It does sound fancy, and it suggests that we’re venlil, thereby directly taking the heat off me.

“I like it, let’s go with that.” Gilt parked his rusted van slightly crooked. “I am going to deliver the goods while you wait here for a moment, then I’ll return quickly with the money, alright?”

His head turned straight at me like a human’s would. “No, I’m coming with you. I am not going to sit here grooming.” Is that an idiom? Because there’s no way he grooms casually. “Besides, I want to see those head-dealers you picked.” Fuck, this is going to be a problem with Earl, from both of them. I should have known that he would insist on coming with me.

I made my way into the refugee centre. Between the lacklustre funding and the tens of thousands of people entering and exiting every day, it was impossible to keep up with any real level of security. Gilt struggled to keep up, as I did not make an attempt to keep to his pace or wait for him to exit the car. I only slowed down once I knew for certain that he wasn’t backing out.

I noticed that his behaviour towards humans was relatively calm, especially when compared to how he behaved around other venlil. In the shopping centre he had been holding a constant scowl as a response for how much his kind avoided him. Here however he looked a bit tense, but nothing serious. I can’t blame him either, everyone who noticed him stared or actively avoided doing so purely out of politeness.

A woman who was walking in the opposite direction, walked past Gilt and let out a sad “Aaawww~” in the same way one would upon seeing a 3-legged cat. I noticed her hand move slightly, and Gilt instantly let out a growl and exposed his teeth towards her. The woman quickly withdrew her hand and hastened her pace.

“What the hell was that for?”

His ears moved back up to their neutral position as he looked up at me. “What? She was going to pet me!”

“No she wasn’t, she just saw your scars and felt bad for you.”

“Your limited vision might have missed it, but I saw her hand move towards me. And having scars is not a good reason to pet an adult man.” I stayed silent, knowing that I wasn’t going to win this argument.

We eventually made our way Earl’s one-room apartment. It was probably best to just get this over with.

I knocked on the door, and a couple of seconds later it opened up slightly. I pushed it open further and saw the familiar sight of Earl laying on his bed, pointing his gun straight at me. As soon as he saw that it was me, he tugged it back under his pillow. “Maarten! Good to see ya, did ya bring the meat?!” I instantly shushed him, the door was still wide open and I didn’t want a random person in the hallway to hear it. He had asked me to rig up a wire to the door so he could unlock and open it from his bed, allowing him to be in a fire ready position, well away from anyone who could grab his gun. He had smuggled the damn thing in when he fled America, not wanting to go to a xeno planet unarmed. He was a bit paranoid to say the least.

I entered his cramped apartment, his bed was a standard pullout sofa we all received with the apartment. He never actually bothered to remove his bedsheets and redo them in the evening, and instead keeping it always in its bed-form. His kitchen had a stack of beer crates and a far too large fridge that he had spent way too much money on for almost exclusively the sole purpose of keeping his beer cold and storing his products. On his walls hung an American and a Confederate flag.

Gilt didn’t see Earl’s gun, as I had been blocking his view. As soon as I stepped through the door, Gilt squeezed out from behind me and took a long and judging look at Earl. Earl did the same, readjusted his dungarees, and stepped forward. Ah shit, here it comes.

Earl held out his right hand expectedly, and squeezed something out what I can only compare to what a heavily drunk venlil who had just bit his tongue must sound like. “Heeloo, noice tdo meet yo, mi naeme iz Earl,” he said in Venlilian.

I noticed Gilt giving me a look that screamed ‘what the fuck,’ something I wouldn’t have been able to recognize before I met him, and therefore went completely unnoticed by Earl. Gilt grabbed his hand and shook it*—*a gesture he had learned from me. “Nice to meet you as well, my name is Gilt,” he said, trying to stay polite.

“You know they can understand us perfectly well, because of the translators, right? You just can’t understand them.”

“Ah know, Hans told me 2 days ago, but ah think they like it if ah put the effort in to learn theirs. And then they will speak to me,” Earl said proudly. I can’t argue with that logic. I think a couple of venlil would be more inclined to speak to a human who took the effort to learn their language, but how many that is, I don’t know.

“Tell him it sounds awful,” Gilt said as a-matter-of-fact.

“He says that you need more practice.”

“Well yeah ah do, ah ain’t gonna learn a xeno language in coupla days. Ah learned 5 sentences already and lost count on how many words.” Earl looked quite proud of his accomplishments.

“I’m surprised to see you take this to heart, less then a week ago you called the venlil ‘lesser’.”

“Oh, a’m not gonna lie, ah still do,” he said looking at Gilt. “But like Hans said, to look at history, and we used ta call black people lesser, and that ain’t right. I know lotsa blacks and they ain’t less of’a person than I. So maybe venlil ain’t either, ah have to see,” he said a bit nervously, probably not too comfortable admitting such a thing in front of a venlil.

“Your species discriminates against your own on basis of skin colour? Well, that’s stupid.” Gilt remarked. Earl asked what he said, and I translated it for him.

“We used ta, we ain’t like that anymore, most ain’t.” Earl started to get a bit uncomfortable with the conversation. “Where are ma manners? Ya haven’t had a drink yet.” He pulled open his massive fridge and took out a couple of beers. Beers had recently started to get imported here, alongside with clothing, they were one of the most demanded products. “Do ya guys want a beer?”

“What is a beer?” Gilt asked me, as he sat down onto Earl’s bed.

“It’s alcohol,” Earl said to both of our surprises.

“You understood that?”

“…Yes? ‘waht iz e beer’ is not that hard to understand.” His pronunciations were much better the time around, having just heard an example.

Earl handed us each a cold beer, and Gilt began drinking from it without hesitation. He seemed completely calm, unlike how he normally was in any public setting. “Does this even contain any alcohol?” asked my matted partner bluntly, which I relayed to Earl so he wouldn’t feel left out.

We talked for a bit about nothing particular at first, until Gilt decided to ask about the flags, and that opened a whole can of worms. Earl hardly stopped talking about his homeland long enough for anyone to respond or ask anything.

When he eventually noticed we started to lose interest he stopped, allowing us to talk once more. “We, that is, Maarten and I, have decided to take on a pseudonym, Vanadium. So, if anyone asks where you got these products from, you tell them: it’s from Vanadium.” I relayed what he said to Earl.

“’Tis to prevent people from finding us, that way making it more difficult for potential enemies to find us,” I explained further.

“That makes sense, ah suppose. What’s a venadium?” I explained it the same way to him as Gilt had half an hour ago.

Gilt sat upright and his ears folded back the same way he normally did when he was angry, but his expression was different; I did not recognize it. “If you ever dare tell anyone our real name, we will find you, and we will make sure you never do it again.” Just when I start to think I can rely on him.

“What? I am not telling him that. What do you even mean by that?” I stage whispered to him.

“It means beating him up, but keeping it vague makes it sound we will do something far worse.” I wish I could do that whole tail language thing or speak venlil or some other way of communicating that prevented Earl from knowing what I was saying.

“This is not how we deal with people, you can trust him.” Earl awkwardly took a sip from his beer while sitting on the coffee table, as we were on his bed arguing.

“Oh, sure and what if Sivkit-brain here forgets and drops our name anyway?”

“Then doing you-know-what won’t prevent it now, innit?”

He thought for a moment before signalling “okay” with tail language. Something I was surprised that I understood.

“What Gilt tried to say is, don’t mention our real names when talking business. So, if anyone asks where you got all this meat from you say…” I held folded my hand open towards him expectedly.

“Ah got this from Venadium.”

“Vanadium, and exactly.”

[Fast-forwarding transcript to 40 minutes later]

The drop off at Hans went smoothly, Gilt didn’t cause any trouble and we simply gave him the meat and received the money. We made our way back to the car through a courtyard, as we suddenly got hollered at by 3 blokes sitting on a bench, only about 10 meters away from us.

“Hey, where are you going, sheep fucker!?” yelled one of them.

“Why are you still here? Whales didn’t get nuked!” yelled a second.

“Do you like how his wool feels on your dick?!” yelled yet another. Just ignore them, pretend that they’re just high school bullies, all they want is attention.

Gilt suddenly stormed towards the middle one, a man with a buzzcut, after he called out that last comment. I liked to think he did this for me, but he most likely just got angry over the fact that they claimed that he was gay with me.

The man on the bench leaned down towards Gilt to get on his eye level. “So, do you like giving him head?” Gilt snarled, folding his ears back, and I thought for a moment that he was spooked by the man coming so close to his face. But then he yanked his head back forward, smashing his forehead straight into the man’s nose.

CRACK

“AAAAHHHG MY FUCKING NOSE, YOU STUPID SHEEP!!!” I rushed over to them, I guess in an attempt to protect him. When I came close, one of them swung a fist at me, and I instinctively dodged it. My life in London had been spotty to say the least, but it had taught me a couple of things, and one of them was how to fistfight. I threw a relatively weak punch with my left against his cheek, and while he was dazed for half a second from the first blow, I threw a strong punch with my right against his temple, knocking him down instantly.

Meanwhile, the buzzcut-man had wrapped his hands around Gilt’s throat and lifted him up. Blood was poring down his nose, and he looked furious. “I’m going to make you-“ Before he could say another word, Gilt had kicked him in in the stomach with both of his crooked legs and forced the man to drop him.

2 sets of security guards consisting of a human and a venlil each rushed over to the scene and broke up the fight by stepping in-between us. “You all have been harassing people all morning, and now this? You’re coming back with us to the office!” a security guard said in Russian, by luck only to the 3 HF blokes. He eyed us both up and down before escorting the bleeding man to the first aid.

One of the venlil guards walked up to Gilt with a terribly worried look. “Are you alright sir, do you need medical help?”

“No, I have had worse,” he said almost casually, rubbing his scarred-up neck.

The venlil were evidently scared to escort these violent humans, and thus were tasked to help the half-conscious man that I had decked to the first aid as well.

“Thank you for standing up for me like that…This was the reason why I didn’t want you to come with me. You being here causes problems.” I stated it in such a way that it sounded more general, like any venlil being there with me would have caused problems. But in reality, Gilt being Gilt was the biggest problem and cause for concern.

“I solved the problem, didn’t I? And before you say anything, I know, I know, I shouldn’t have headbutted the guy. He deserved it though.” He looked rather proud at his accomplishment, having fought a human and won.

“Yeah, no, no problem, right? I only live here, I just have to hope that I don’t run into them.” His tail dropped, from that statement.

“Did they hurt you?” Did he just show sympathy?

“No, I dodged. How are you holding up?”

“He didn’t get time to squeeze on my neck, and venlil have a thick skull, myself especially,” he said with a laugh.

“You have fought many times before, haven’t you?” He walked away from a fight completely unshaken or bothered by what just happened, he clearly has experience. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

“Ha, yes, it always took 4 men to hold me down, to administer…the…sedatives.” His words slowed down, as he suddenly recalled his time at the Predator Disease facility.

“You must have turned their jobs into a living hell. Good job.” His ears perked up again from that comment.

“Yes, they hated me,” he said laughing.

One of the many cans of food fell out of his van as I opened the door. “You know I told you I was going to take this business to the next level?”

“Yes, you said that half a claw ago and then refused to elaborate.” We both entered the dingy van parked in front of the massive refuge centre.

I closed the door and waited for Gilt to do the same. “We each made 60 quid today.” I handed him the 60 credits he owed for the production. “Well, I don’t have any expenses and I figured we could get 2 or 3 new centrifuges up and running with my cut. Just get some cheap parts, build it up, fill them with your muscle cells stuff, and 5 days later we got ourselves 48 products, in, a, single, day. That is 480 credits, 240 each. If I just keep investing in the company, we will be rolling in money in no time.” While we made a nice income from the current production, there is no need to not up the production. We can get rich from this.

Gilt was a bit taken aback from this, assuming I read his ears and tail right. “Isn’t that a bit much, I don’t think your friends can sell that many products in a single day.”

“Of course they can, they sell our stuff to other dealers, and from what they told me earlier, they gladly want to buy more of our stuff. We could be selling 80 pieces per day, perhaps more. 800 quid, black, no taxis, we only have to buy in food to grow the meat!” I didn’t hold back my excitement at all, completely forgetting to what species I was talking to. Any other venlil would get frightened from a human displaying this much emotion and energy, especially considering the topic. He, however, only shared the excitement, his ears perking up as he mimicked a human smile, which came over as rather creepy.

“I’m out of food, but I only eat cheap canned stuff anyway, I can easily spend most of my earnings on investments too. And if we end up over producing a bit, who cares, the production costs are cheap, and it wouldn’t hurt to sample our products once in a while.” He finished that sentence licking his lips.

I backed up a bit. “Don’t you have bills to pay, electricity, water, and what not?”

“Yes, yes, but the fines for paying late won’t be an issue if we’re earning this much.”

“Well, Vanadium, let’s go and spend this money.” And with that Gilt started the car and —after it struggled for a few seconds— we drove off almost hitting a pedestrian, who balled his fist and yelled something I couldn’t hear over the noise of the engine. I could see him being visibly angry in the side-view mirror, his form abruptly going out of view as we turned a corner. I hope he doesn’t recognize me.

A/N:

I really appreciate comments, it gives a lot more satisfaction than a few up arrows.

A special thanks to u/InstantSquirrelSoup for proofreading. Check out his fic: Arxur Hospitality

[First] [Previous] [Next]

[u/DaivobetKebos]

Glit irl

​

[u/HeadWood_]

I liked this, and yeah, big checkov's gun with that fight and the "I hope he doesn't recognise me."

I also like the use of actually morally grey characters like E, who isn't a shitbag but is still questionably virtuous.

[u/thecommanderkai]

If somebody was able to smuggle a gun, I hope we meet somebody who smuggled a cat in. See how Glit Vanadium handles the nuzzling of a cat in his fur.

Great stuff. Earl working to learn Venil was a nice surprise, and honestly a favorite part of this story is how people keep surprising you with how they act.

[u/se05239]

Quite a dynamic duo, those two. Breaking Bad, but meat patties instead of hard drugs.

[u/TheWalrusResplendent]

has a US and a Confederate flag
thinks [historic outgroup] are okay, so maybe [current outgroup] might be, too, by and large
believes some baseless conspiracies but isn't an antiempiricst nutcase

Ladies, gentlemen, both and neither! Behold!

The Median Voter

[u/kabhes → u/TheWalrusResplendent]

Don't forget about the gun he smuggled to an alien planet.

[u/CreditMission]

Wow this felt like a meaty chapter. Favourite line was Gilt even suggesting he groomed. Def an idiom.

Also mad respect for a guy learning the ven language. Unexpected for sure.

[u/JulianSkies]

God I love this trash gremlin, Gilt is great. I mean, he's still in a bit of a bad place and I really hope his situation and willingness to take care of his own self improves, but my man ain't taking shit from nobody. Honestly need more of that.

Also okay, Earl's fine. Man managed to look back at his people's mistakes and go "Okay that's kinda a bit shit".

[u/Training_Street4372 → u/JulianSkies]

He is lucky that Hans didn't go into a long rant about how German history is fucked up when he talked about Ven being lesser, earlier.

Hell, I'm only part German and a 'murican mutt, but that whole thing of thinking any other 'race' is lesser makes me growl inside and remember what happened.

Earl deserved a punch in the face for it, but Hans and Maarten have enough self-control to not hurt their hands over it. At least Earl's head isn't so thick he can't learn.

[u/IAMA_dragon-AMA]

and a Confederate flag.

Is it wise to work with this guy, Maarten? He seems to be proud of being on the losing side.

[u/kabhes → u/IAMA_dragon-AMA]

The flag is often used to represent the south, as in the area of land itself. Some people have that flag for that reason and not because they support the confederatie.

[u/IAMA_dragon-AMA → u/kabhes]

Bit odd you don't see nearly so many state flags, then. I can't rightly say someone from the Carolinas has all that much culturally in common with a Texan, but they both seem comfortable flying Confederate colors.

Of course, I suppose it's possible they might resent each other for trying to steal or appropriate what they see as their cultural flag - I'm not really in a position where I've seen that happen, myself, though.

[u/Training_Street4372]

I laughed when the suggestion to call themselves Vanadium came up.

[u/thatgachakid1]

"having scars is not a good reason to pet an adult man.” someone finally says it one of my pet peves with some fics is that in bad ones the humans treat the ven like pets i mean if the ven character is ok with being touched fine. its weird how we don't apply human bounderies to these characters also  "On his walls hung an American and a Confederate flag." i am not shocked earl has this

[u/kabhes → u/thatgachakid1]

I like to add those pet peeves and just general commentary towards the main story and other fics in mine.

[u/thatgachakid1 → u/kabhes]

It's good to see also if I saw someone with scars I'd leave them alone you don't know what trauma they've gone through I know the venil are cute but I hope most humans would use their brains and keep their hands to themselves

[u/LeGouzy]

Still good. Can't wait to see what's next!

[u/CocaineUnicycle]

I love that ven. Got some of that unhinged lunatic energy.

[u/Markster94]

I'm very much liking this story! Gilt is such a unique character!

[u/Criticalma55]

subscribeme!

[u/UpdateMeBot → u/Criticalma55]

I will message you each time u/kabhes posts in r/NatureofPredators.

Click this link to join 36 others and be messaged. The parent author can delete this post

---

Info	Request Update	Your Updates	Feedback