Chapter 6

“My meat?” John asked, confused.

The girl hesitated and looked at the number on the door. “You are John Connors, right?” John nodded, and she smiled, relieved. “Phew! For a moment I thought I had knocked on the wrong door. It’s my first day at this job, it wouldn’t be good to start with a mistake!”

She waited for a moment. “Won’t you let me in?” she asked.

John opened the door and the girl walked in smiling. “Nice place!” she said, looking around. Her eyes then fixed on John. “Oh, I’m Tammy Jones, and I’m your meat!”

“You already said that,” John said, confused. “What does that mean?”

Now it was the turn for the girl to be confused. “You are a member of the ‘Meat of the Month’ club, and have a girl delivered every month to be butchered and eaten. Maybe I came on the wrong day?”

“Meat of the month?” At any other time John would have asked what that was, but now he immediately understood. “Am I supposed to snuff and eat this girl?” he asked himself, knowing very well that the answer was “yes.”

He looked again at the expectant girl. “If you show me the kitchen I will prepare everything!” she said, with a smile. “I can’t believe my time is up at last!” He simply made a gesture to the kitchen, and the girl strolled there, still talking. “You know, my sister told me this morning that she hoped you were handsome, and you are indeed! Will be very honored to be eaten by you.”

At that moment Jenna came out of the bedroom, mop and broom in her hands and wearing headphones. Her face showed confusion, it was clear she hadn’t heard anything. “Hi. Who are you?” She took her headphones out and greeted the new arrival.

“Hi. I’m Tammy, his meat!” she said, extending her hand. Jenna took it and smiled.

“Nice to meet you. You arrived just on time, I had checked the pantry and we’re almost out of meat!” Then she turned to John. “Master, do you want to snuff her or should I do it?” she asked. “I’ve helped to snuff a few office girls in my time, it would be nice to use those skills again.”

John reacted from its shock. “No. Nobody will be snuffed here today!”

Tammy’s face showed shock first, then distress. “What?” Her eyes started to water. “Am I not of your liking? Should I have been fatter?” She started to wring her hands. “I knew! I should have eaten more pasta! Perhaps ... Perhaps you can BBQ me instead of cooking?”

John tried to calm her. “Please, do not return me!” she wailed in desperation.

“STOP!” he shouted. Tammy stopped immediately. This girl was used to receive orders.

He looked at the clock on the wall. He should leave now if he wanted to keep his appointment with Dr. Evans.

“Now listen to me, both of you. I have no time for this right now, but when I come back we will talk. And I mean the THREE of us!” He looked at Jenna. “Is it clear, SLAVE?”

“Yes, Master,” Jenna answered. He looked at Tammy. “Yes, John,” she said, subdued.

John stopped at the gate of a modern complex of buildings. It looked like a small college campus or hospital, but the armed guard at the checkpoint told any visitor that this was not the case.

“Hi. My name is John Connors, Dr. Evans is waiting for me.”

The guard checked his ID and browsed her list. After a moment, she nodded. “Main building, ground floor, door 101. You can park on any visitor space there,” she gestured with an arm.

“Thank you,” answered John, sighing mentally. It was the first time he was being ID’ed in this world and his mind still wasn’t used to the fact he had replaced this world’s John Connors.

After a short walk from the parking lot, he was now in front of Dr. Evan’s office. He knocked.

“Come on in,” came the voice.

John opened the door. The office looked like any other office for a managerial level, but with a small difference: one of the walls held several racks with female heads carefully preserved. All of them looked life-like, with expressions varying from bored to smiling. “Curious,” he thought. “None of those faces look afraid.” He wondered if it was real or just the taxidermist’s art.

“Hi, Mr. Connors,” Dr. Evans greeted him, his hand giving him a gesture to sit.

“Hi, Dr. Evans. I ... I wanted to talk about some things.”

“I can guess,” Dr. Evans answered, smiling. “But please, call me Paul. I believe we are going to be well-acquainted with each other in the near future.”

“You may be right. At this time, you may be my only link to reality. I really need to understand if I’m going to survive and keep my sanity intact.”

Dr. Evans gave him a pained look. “I won’t presume to understand what you’re going through, but I’ll try to help.”

John sighed. “I suppose the obvious question would be ‘why’. Why are women killed so casually, and how can they die so happily? How did it start, and why?” He looked Dr. Evans in the eye. “Two days ago I was a regular guy in a regular job. Today I have killed two women, beautiful and full of life. I have a slave who thinks she’s already dead. I have a meatgirl at home watching TV while waiting for me to butcher her. And none of them even thought about protesting, fleeing or protecting themselves in any way. What kind of madness is this?” John’s eyes conveyed the anguish he felt.

Dr. Evans remained silent for a few minutes. John tried to speak again, but Dr. Evans held a finger up, making him shut his mouth.

“Mr. Connors ... John. What I’m about to tell you is not public knowledge, at least not anymore.”

“Er ... it’s not one of those ‘I will tell you but have to kill you afterwards’ things, isn’t it?” John would not be a bit surprised if this were the case.

Dr. Evans laughed. “Oh, no. It’s not a secret per se, it’s only that those people who lived it died a long time ago, and the results are so ingrained in our society that nobody questions them. Nowadays the only ones who really know and remember are mostly top government officials and top scientists. I belong to the second group.”

John breathed a sigh of relief. “Ok, please go on.”

“Are you familiar with the word ‘prion’?” Dr. Evans asked.

John thought about it for a second. “I’ve heard about ‘prion diseases’ like the mad cow disease, but that’s all I know.”

“You know, I’d like my students to be as eclectic in their knowledge as you are. It would make my academic life a lot easier,” the old scientist remarked.

“A prion is a misfolded protein. It has the power to misfold other similar proteins, and this way triggers cellular death. Since it’s not caused by an external agent but it’s inherent to life, there is no cure and whichever disease it causes, it’s always fatal. Now, in practice most prion diseases are harmless because they take so long to appear that, by the time they do, the carrier is already dead of natural causes. Every living being has the potential to develop prion diseases. A long time ago, 200 years, give or take, something happened to humankind. It was...”

At that moment there was a knock on the door. John turned to the door, which opened revealing a very beautiful redhead girl.

“Excuse me, Dr. Evans, I’m your...”

“Oh, yes, of course. Excuse me, John but I’m under medical treatment. Don’t worry about her.”

The girl simply smiled and slipped under the desk. A few seconds later, Dr. Evans sighed and relaxed.

“Where was I ... oh, yes. However, around 200 years ago, we still don’t know why, several of those prions became active when the carrier was still in their infancy. They affected almost exclusively human females. The results were catastrophic. Suddenly, the male-female birth ratio turned from 1:1 to 1:500. Surely you have noticed how few men are out there?”