Nightshade Pulp

Tessa gaped at her hands, slathered in thick, red pulp. A clot plopped on the floor somewhere near her shoes. It was impossible to tell in the dim light of the bare bulb.

“I did it,” she breathed in wonder.

“I did it.” She choked, acid building on her tongue.

***

Earlier that morning, Tessa sharpened the knives in the kitchen of Krelix House—her favorite chore. Knives offered something real: real weight, real consequences. Only the sharpest could cut through the endless variants of imitation soy foods served at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Vigo Krelix appeared in the kitchen without preamble, wringing his hands. “We’ve come to discuss Danique’s birthday gift.” Ladonna, his wife, loomed over his shoulder.

Cook bustled away from the stove, obscuring Tessa from view. “Has she decided?”

Vigo licked spittle from the corner of his lips. “She has.”

“She wants a tomato,” Ladonna announced.

Tessa froze, silencing the hiss of the knife against the sharpening block. Her eyes flicked to the pantry, its cracked door revealing shelves lined with pallid boxes and cans.

“We haven’t had a tomato since—” Cook began, trailing off.

Ladonna’s brows met firmly above her nose. “We have one in the vault,” she insisted.

Cook’s gaze flicked between her employers’ dour expressions. “Yes, there’s one in vault.”

Tessa bit her tongue, tasting blood. Another fabrication, another lie. Cook was just another part of Krelix House.

“She’d like to inspect it,” Vigo blurted. “She wants it to be fresh, but—”

“My daughter wants to ‘hold something pulled from the earth’—her exact words—but one from the vault will suffice,” Ladonna finished. “Retrieve it now, see that it defrosts by her birthday. The girl won’t be able to tell the difference.”

Cook nodded. “Right away.”

Vigo departed with the quick press of his lips that passed for a smile. Ladonna followed, her viscose gown trailing over the laminate marble flooring.

Eyes bulging, Cook whirled on Tessa. “Get to the vault and find a tomato immediately!”

“There isn’t one. We inventoried at the start of the week—” Tessa protested.

“I said now!” Cook ripped the knife from her hands. “Our livelihoods depend on it,” she hissed.

Tessa nodded and left the kitchen. She ran through the gardens, where nothing grew except plaster columns and artificial greenery. When the ChemGrass gave way to cracked asphalt at the property line, she knelt before a trapdoor and descended.

The bare bulb cast an eerie glow around the refrigerated crypt. Like many families of their class, the Krelixes maintained a vault of artifacts from the old days. Unlike other families of their class, their vault did not contain artworks, family heirlooms, or other markers of prosperity. Theirs contained food, and the supply was dwindling.

Though the inventory, her memory, and the absence of anything red told Tessa there were no tomatoes concealed in the vault, she looked anyway; lingering at the end of each aisle. She was not tempted to taste one of the deep-frozen delicacies, many of which pre-dated her own birth. It was precisely her birthplace that advised her against it. Her job forced her to eat fake food, sleep on a synthetic mattress, and breathe biodome-generated air, all still better than the alternative: reality.

Securing the vault’s padlock, Tessa trudged back to the kitchen. Cook waited with bated breath.

“I found one,” Tessa said, trembling.

Cook studied her for a moment. “Well, where is it?”

“I moved it to the front of the vault,” Tessa lied. “It was frozen solid, and I thought a gradual defrost would maintain its turgor pressure. You know, so Danique won’t know it came from the vault.”

Cook nodded slowly and turned to the cutting board. The knives were sharp and ready.

“You’ve done great work here, you know,” she said. “I think you can take the rest of the day off.”

Tessa watched her boss, her smallest fingers restlessly tapping the countertop. Cook slid a paring knife toward Tessa. This was an act of mercy or condemnation. She wasn’t sure which.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Tessa promised. This time, the truth.

“Good,” said Cook.

***

Tessa hadn’t left the biosphere since she took the job at Krelix House. Three years was a long time, but not long enough to erase her memory of untreated air: a sharp bouquet of ozone, smog, and sewer. Neon and LED advertisements jockeyed for her attention on every available surface of cityscape, lighting her path to the market district.

Scarred steel tool chests parked in alleyways and sidewalks, displaying their wares. The closer to the biosphere, the more organized things were; some of the braver families would risk emissaries to procure any unsavory requests. Tessa noted broken bits of plastic from nostalgic toys, hardware odds and ends if anyone was trying to maintain vintage tech off the books. She didn’t waste her time. None of these vendors would have what she needed.

Deeper into the city, her feet found a familiar cadence. Landmarks stood out; though warped by time, she remembered playing under the laundromat drop-off chute or skipping pebbles into the restaurant oil runoff.

She paused at the second stall from the corner. No one appeared to be supervising the cart, and there was no clear rhyme or reason to its contents: vintage wrappers, used plastic bags, shiny bits of giftwrap, a disk or two. “Dimitri?”

A bespectacled man with leathery skin and greasy hands appeared from behind a drainpipe. He gave her a onceover on reflex and recoiled in a heartbeat. “We don’t need your kind here,” he spat, lunging to collapse his cart and roll it away.

“Dimitri, wait. It’s me, Tessa.” This was exactly what she was looking for.

He stuttered, wiping even more grease on his glasses. “Tessa Thorne? Don’t tell me you’ve sunk so low.”

Tessa hugged him, making sure to get her maid uniform as dirty as possible. “There are worse things than a full belly, Dimitri.”

“You know best, I suppose,” he muttered darkly. “What can I do for you?”

“My employer has a request,” Tessa began. Dimitri tutted.

“You can turn around and go back about half a dozen blocks. They won’t be looking for anything I have to sell, and I don’t want anything of theirs in exchange.”

“Sure about that?” Tessa eyed his wares. “I bet there’s more than a few things on this cart pilfered from within the biosphere. You wouldn’t want me to alert the neighbors about some of their missing items.”

Dimitri snarled, then smiled ruefully. “Truce, Tessa. Neither of us wants any trouble, so let’s just get this over with. What do you need?”

“A tomato.”

“Impossible. You’ve been sequestered in the biodome for too long. Do you know the types of atrocities people commit to grow produce? I’m talking beyond criminal: forced labor, water restrictions, that sort of thing.”

He picked his teeth and looked over her shoulder. Tessa sensed movement behind her and felt her luck run out.

“Get behind the cart,” Dimitri said, jaw clenched. “You’re making yourself a target.”

She crouched as two surveillance drones buzzed the alley.

“Stay down. And while you’re down there, second drawer from the bottom.”

The cart’s coating was peeling, particles pricking her palms. She carefully slid the penultimate drawer open. Dimitri pasted a smile on his face and noisily rummaged through the top drawer. The drones were closer now, scanning facial ID and market stall registrations.

A scant few vegetables rolled around the drawer. It was a feast for her eyes: a deep purple eggplant, dark red potatoes, two yellow bell peppers. Nestled safely in the corner— a bright red tomato.

Tessa cradled it against her uniform. It fit in her palm, but was surprisingly heavy. She breathed a sigh of relief. She could keep her job and Cook would be safe. Danique would get exactly what she wanted, as always, and the world would move on, unchanged.

Something soured in her stomach as the drones leveled with Dimitri’s cart. She didn’t know why, or how Dimitri managed to procure the produce, but she was sure it wasn’t good.

A klaxon clanged. Dimitri kicked the drawer closed, begging “Officers, please— inspect my license. I’m a simple nostalgia vendor, hardly able to compete with those in the market.”

Without thinking, Tessa leapt into the street and ran. A drone pursued her, but it wasn’t the first time. The defunct laundromat chute was just around the corner; a perfect hiding place.

Tomato tucked to her side, she cleared cobwebs and rat droppings before climbing up. Just as she suspected, her sudden disappearance stumped the drone. It hovered for a few minutes, the rotor blades echoing eerily against the metal walls. Eventually, it fell silent.

Tessa peered out of the chute long enough to see Dimitri facedown on the street while a third ambulatory drone methodically emptied his cart. She hit the streets and picked her way back to the biodome at a sedate pace, careful not to attract attention. She didn’t stop until she was safely sequestered beneath the bare bulb of the Krelix vault.

The tomato looked different in the yellow light. Its crimson hue seemed duller, nearly persimmon. Tessa turned it over in her hands. Her heart fell when she found a bruise under the pad of her thumb.

The Krelixes will never accept this, she thought. What a waste.

The labor of the people who grew the produce in impossible conditions. Dimitri’s sacrifice for an old friend, now more of an acquaintance. Cook, giving Tessa the option to run or prove herself. And Tessa, on the chopping block despite her best efforts to meet the impossible standards of her employers.

A thought wrapped itself around her mind; a clinging vine.

What if I tasted it?

Tessa found the paring knife she’d pocketed that morning. Laying the tomato on an empty shelf, she held the knife above the red orb.

The blade fell and the skin collapsed, guts and seeds splattering everywhere.

Tessa kept cutting, mangling each slice. When she’d exposed the center, she slipped a wedge into her mouth.

She gaped at her hands, slathered in thick, red pulp. A clot plopped on the floor somewhere near her shoes. It was impossible to tell in the dim light of the bare bulb.

“I did it,” she breathed in wonder.

“I did it.” She choked, acid building on her tongue.