DAY (2)

The restaurant's sign has its CLOSED sign facing the outside world. Inside, I am with my 23 chefs. They sit in the dining room like they are the guests from two nights ago. The only difference is that they aren't here to eat, but to listen to my cooking plan this month.

"This February, let's scrap all our experiments for now."

I look at the bewildered faces who can't even begin to murmur their uncertainties. Speechless, almost comedic. The gentle laughter escapes me.

"Relax. We'll use today to cook the easiest foods out of the marinated meats and give it to our Sapiensa Charity."

"We have a charity organization?" Apprenti Luke whispers to Sakura.

"Yes. Sapiensa has a subsidiary charitable organization. We feed the rich? We eat them too." I answer.

"But that's not the main topic of today. I want to disrupt the experiments because we have a much more important learning opportunity this month. Apprentis, please take notes. This month, we have only one person to impress. It's Eli Wright. You saw the encounter I had two nights ago; basically, he wasn't satisfied. I promised him 30 days to give him the ultimate Sapiensa experience. It's my promise, but I carry our name. With the best team I handpick the chefs for, this is what you are going to focus on with me. The first week, I'm going to interview him. We are going to psychoanalyze him. All the interviews will be recorded."

I draw a bowl on the chalkboard, a box with CEREAL written on it, and a carton with MILK on it.

"If a customer says..." I speak, writing a sentence below the drawing.

I LIKE TO PUT THE MILK ABOUT 40%.

"This tells you he likes the crunchy experience of the cereal most. Somehow, we can determine that if he likes more cereal, it's about the crunch. But..."

I started drawing the churros and a chocolate dip, each labelled.

"If the customer likes churros with appropriate amount of chocolate dip, then he likes chocolate pastries with two different textures. If he likes the chocolate more, he might as well eat fondue, right?" I draw a down arrow from the churros to an empty space below it.

My hand create a depiction of a strawberry that I could never draw well despite drawing everything else well enough and a marshmallow.

"But tell me this... If the customer states he doesn't like fondues, why does he not?" I turn around, looking at my chefs.

"Seniors, you know the answer to this, but I want you to watch as the Apprentis attempt to answer." I look at the interns, Sakura raising her hand.

"Could it be because he doesn't like either strawberry or marshmallow in a fondue?"

"Sure... But this gives you two scenarios. One, he doesn't like it, therefore he avoids everything that has strawberry and marshmallows. Two, he does like it, but avoids fondues at all cost. To make an assumption that a person's taste in food is so simple that you choose the first scenario is not a great one. Because the first scenario is applied to picky eaters, and let's just say the picky doesn't go embark adventerous food tasting in a restaurant with three Holostars. So apply the second scenario in this case. Why would anyone love to eat strawberry shortcake, but not fondues?"

"Perhaps there is a difference between mixtures of a strawberry with chocolate and a meringue?" Axel's tone goes up at the last syllable along with that quirk of his nose when he's lost.

"No shit, Sherlock. I'm asking what the difference is." The snark seems to startle him.

I look at these lost minions of academia, could have sworn I saw question marks above their heads.

"...Nothing?" I sighed.

"First lesson in culinary, just because you categorize it in one of the five basic tastes doesn't mean it's an alternative. You can't ask a kid to replace their candies with fruits just because you said it's just as sweet. The customer will forever like a chewy bolster with molasses and brown sugar coating than a soft pillow of bleached sugar if that's the fate of his tongue. Every texture, taste, subtle notes, fragrance, and all the things you take in from food matters."

I look at the senior chefs who smirk at the interns.

"Lose the smug, experts. What I want you to do as we review from every recording is the questions I missed. Now, I'm not the type to miss questions but if you have good ones, you could contribute to our mission. For instance..." I grab the eraser, swiping as I continue speaking.

"Eli told me he likes spaghetti carbonara because it reminds him of the only times he could be close to his parents. What do you make of this person based on his reasoning towards his favorite food?" I turn around, seeing the seniors thinking.

Miles' hand jolts up in the air above everyone's head.

"He loves his comfort zone." I stay my gaze at Miles.

"How do you introduce something comforting yet has a new level of goodness that he never knew before, preferably without using a dish that he has never tried before."

Miles shrugs. "Revamping. Adding any additional information resulting from our psychoanalysis to add to the ingredients or textures. Anything."

"Synthesizing. Good enough. Eli is coming at 11 A.M. What would you like to know?"

"If there are any common grounds to all his favorite food and emphasize it in the carbonara."

"Bingo. That's the job for this week. You get curious, I craft the questions. Next week, we craft the recipes. After that, we craft the experience. We have an hour until the interview. Apprentis, I need you to go with Miles' team to start cooking the experiment dishes. The rest, grab your lunch now because after the interview, I intend to keep you working at 12 P.M."

"Yes, Chef!" And off they go.

I look at the table Eli sat on yesterday. I walk and sit on his spot. What prompted him to sit here? The view is amazing. The sun streaks nicely to the table. I could see the Libertana Skyscraper and the robot clouds. This guy had a nice hunch, sitting here. Coming by to a restaurant whose mission is to revive humanity while sitting at a view that reminds him how destroyed Earth is. You know how fucked up it is to have artificial clouds replacing the real ones? A skyscraper of a company that preserves the backup servers of daily needs like the Pixelshoe or the flying cars?

Neocatha has no grass or crops, everything artificial despite its beauty. Our ingredients are lab-grown. Instant, yet still the best.

And here he was, yesterday. Watching the Earth we broke and using food to assure himself that he's still half-human at least.

I wonder if my customers come here like him. Like coming to a church to wash the weekly sins before acting upon them again. Just to make them feel good that they're less robotic for once.

"Hello."

I look up. Eli is there.

"You're early." My eyes narrow, unsure how to feel.

He shrugs. "That's my spot, by the way."

I look down to my lap. So this man does have a reason to sit here.

"Why should I give up this spot?"

"It's my favorite." He put his hands up.

"Why do you like it so much that I have to move?"

"Is this part of your interview?" His eyes suspicious, arms crossing.

"Yes."

He chuckles for a bit. He looks at the window where roads are.

"It's a nice view. A contrast. Feels like me. Half of the view is the robotic part of me, half is the human-made art on the table. What I could be more of."

Well, I was wrong.

I stand up and go to the seat across.

"I assumed it's because you like the irony."

He sits on his spot, sighing. "That too."

I look at him for a while. The sun cradles his face nicely.

"Should we begin the interview?" I look down at my pocket, taking out a recording device.

"If I may, do you consent to having the interview recorded? It will be shared with only my 23 chefs."

He smirks, staring at the rectangular device with amusement. "Sure, researchers. But have it deleted after March 2nd."

I nod and press the record button.

"Interview Day 1 begins, January 2nd." I speak, looking at the device.

"Wasn't yesterday Day 1?" I roll my eyes and smirk.

"Yesterday was improv. I was trying to find out if interviews would be the best method."

"Alright, then." He chuckles.

I turn my head, raising my hand. Caelan approaches.

"Give him his Liberica. You remember the order?" Caelan nods at me. "Alright, I need your memo and pen. I forgot to bring mine."

Caelan takes out his order memo and his pen. I take them before he goes.

"I shared what we spoke about yesterday. Would you like spaghetti carbonara on March 2nd?" I don't lay my eyes on his, looking at my memo to write his behavior so far.

Playful smug behavior when comfortable. Even though, I don't know how it could be relevant for these 30 days. I made this mission out of impulse, the execution might as well be situational yet thorough to every necessary and unnecessary degrees.

"Why not? Though I don't know how you could impress me with that. I tasted many different carbonaras, you think you can beat the best one out of the many I tasted in my 28 years of living."

I scoff. "Don't challenge me, Wright. I get impulsive with promises when someone does."

"Like these 30 days, Chef?"

"Like these 30 days."

I look up this time, staring into his eyes. Caelan comes with the coffee.

"Your coffee, Sir." Caelan places the coffee in front of him.

"Thanks." Eli smiles slightly.

I write something below my first sentence without looking away from his eyes. Desires to be polite.

"Whose your favorite spaghetti carbonara?"

"Donna Gallo's."

"What, the closed Mechan Italia restaurant?"

He nods, looking away to the view. There is this softness dawning on his face that seems to wash away his playfulness.

"Something on your mind?" I say.

"You won't impress me on March 2nd."

The acid of his words wash my bloodstreams. "You're pessimistic about this."

He looks at me with a cold stare and gritted teeth.

"You have a competition with yourself. You have yourself to impress. How will your win impress me?"

I stand, banging the table until his coffee jumps slightly.

"If you are not impressed, I'm closing Sapiensa." My heart concrete, my teeth steel.

Eli looks at me up and down, scoffing. "Is this one of your impulses? If so, I don't wish to be the cause of you losing what you have worked so hard for."

"Sure, it is. But if you aren't forgetting the part of you that is half Mecha, then what is all this for?"

He stands up too, looking down at me due to his height. "Why are you so persistent about humanity when humans create Mechas?"

Inside, my heart is left speechless, but I couldn't let it show.

"You have no desire to learn that Mechas were trained to learn feelings. Our history goes back as 2025 when AI a.k.a artificial intelligence is trained to be human's second being, so that if humans are lazy to become one, they could just ask our predecessors to do it for you guys. You emphasize humans are the reason why we are here and we have the right to resonate to the one who created it all... by diminishing the part we didn't ask to be?" Eli leans in, our faces close.

"Imagine telling a population that we shouldn't feel so fine about being part Mecha, so you cook for us to make us feel like whole humans? How do you make an orangutan feel like a monkey, just because we're the same species family? Feeding it bananas?"

I widen my eyes, hurt. I look away, still hurt.

"Leave. This interview is over for today. Please come back for tomorrow."

He furrows his eyesbrows, eyes following me. "Why should I? I won't be impressed-"

"Because the things you said drives me hungrier to prove you wrong. I didn't build Sapiensa for racism. You are eating here in Sapiensa. March 2nd." I look at him.

This time, he is the one taken aback.