A zombie in the 23rd century (completed 11/11)

The cat and the soldier

A ZOMBIE IN THE 23RD CENTURY

Capítulo 5: The cat and the soldier

Hello friends, in case you don't remember, a girl with so few clothes named Hailey had just discovered that I, Vladimir, come from the past. The friend in question surrounds me and looks at me with eyes like plates.

"Look, if you keep looking at me like that, I'm gonna have to charge you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but this is so amazing."

"Don't worry, by the way, do you have any more sandwiches? I'm starving to death."

"Of course we're going to Laura's."

"Excuse me, is this another jargon used in the future?"

"No fool, the Laura is a machine that acts as a food processor by cloning biological cells."

"A food processor of the future, like those of Star Trek?"

"What's all this about Star Trek?"

"Hey, a very popular TV series in my time, a lot of movies were made of it."

"I've never heard of it before."

Wow, I wonder what the hell has happened in the past that Hailey hasn't heard of Star Trek.

No friends, don't believe that crap they show in The Big Bang Theory, the girls also see science fiction and the female fans of that series are legion. And even if Hailey didn't like that show, she should have at least heard of it.

My new friend showed me the strange washing machine a while ago.

"This model of Laura's is basic. It can generate several bars of meat and vegetable that you can then cook, and it can even generate purified water and fabric fibers."

"Impressive."

"Not at all, you should see the Laura's in very fancy restaurants, those things are the size of this room and instead of food bars, they can reproduce a dead animal in a matter of minutes, including bones and nerves."

"Whoa, hey, can you show me?"

"Sure," Hailey said to me, and then she showed me the side of the machine. It opened and I could see how there were several small rectangular samples similar in size and thickness to semitransparent stamps. Next to these were small test tubes that were very thin and smaller than my little finger.

"The rectangular samples are meat from different animals and birds; there are also samples from different fruits, vegetables, tubers, whatever you like; what looks like test tubes contain water, or juices from different fruits or similar."

Hailey started the machine with the movement of her eyes and opened a panel through which after a couple of seconds a tray with a piece of raw meat that was apparently fish came out.

"Ta-da!" My friend said happily as she showed me the bar of meat that was rectangular and the size and thickness of a compact brick.

Then the machine produced a juice of something green that looked disgusting, sure was something nutritious with celery and spinach that was poured into a kind of blender glass.

"Gosh, hey, you said something about fabrics, too."

"Yes, look" the young lady activated the Laura and on the other side a light pink ball appeared, it was sheep's wool ready to weave.

"I've never seen anything so incredible before, but now what I remember in my time they were already experimenting with this technology."

"Really?"

"Yes, they called it the process of growing meat for stem cells. They say the hamburger they made that time cost about $200 to $300,000 and tasted like a horse's ass, but the potential was phenomenal. In other words, at first the light bulbs were so expensive that only the rich could buy them, and the same thing happened with cell phones."

"You're right, Vladimir, before the Laura's were very expensive, now everyone has them."

"And in this day and age there are machines that prepare your food?"

"I wish, no machine could do that. There used to be androids that could do that, but they were banned long ago."

"Androids?"

"Yes, they were very similar in shape to human, no, in fact, they were identical. There were several problems and the government of the United Space Earth had to suppress its manufacture."

"The government of the United Space Earth, what is that?"

"It's the government that controls the entire planet along with the space bases surrounding the planet and the scientific bases on the Moon, Mars and in Europe, the moon of Jupiter."

"Hey, are you all right?" Hailey asked me with a funny smile on her face. It was clear that everyday life for her was incredible from my perspective, and she was enjoying it a lot.

"Yes, I'm fine. In fact, in my time there were already plans to colonize Mars, so are there already cities on the Moon and Mars?"

"Not at all, it is impossible to have cities on other planets. The gigantic space stations orbiting the planet alone are home to thousands of people. On Mars, the Moon and Europe, there are only a few scientific research stations with few people living there."

"And why is that?"

"For many reasons, but mainly economic. That it can be done, but it would not be profitable or self-sufficient."

At that moment I remembered the words of an old song that my father liked, about colonizing the Moon and living with beautiful Selenites. Space cities are just a dream in the past or in the future.

Suddenly I saw a cat coming at me and Hailey grabbed him.

"That's your cat, what's his name?"

"Well, his name is... Vladimir."

"Like me, not fuc....!"

"Don't you like cats?"

"I love them, but I was surprised that his name is Vladimir."

Vladimir Simeon Mininof Gato, that's his full name," Hailey said to me as she looked tenderly at the cat and he looked at me with a surprised expression, well I guess it was a surprised expression. Cats' faces are hard to read.

CONTINUARÁ...