When the ski lift reaches the exit most level with Jashi’s farm, just a few hundred feet up from the base of the volcano, Emi refuses Jashi’s offer to help her down. From where she has fallen face-first onto the hard ground, she struggles back into a standing position on the board-like-cast that’s wrapped like a boot around almost the entirety of her right leg. Though she is covered in dirt, she only bothers to wipe it from her eyes—using the inside of her shirt like she is cleaning off a pair of glasses.

  The speaker outputting a voice from her neck is now much closer to that of a young Japanese woman, but still not how she remembers speaking. Emi asks, without acknowledging the shame of her fall, “Where are the fields?”

  Jashi points to the line of buildings standing where Emi had expected layered rice paddies to be layered into the walls of the volcano. “Still too cold to grow much outside—I made the investment to move everything indoors years ago.” He stops in front of her, suddenly pushing a wheel-barrel.

  “Absolutely not.” Emi protests as she attempts to stagger backward.

  As she tips, Jashi catches her with one hand using the front of her shirt before she can fall. He shrugs after standing her upright, “Suit yourself.”

  Emi starts to hop behind him and his wheel-barrel, only to realize the act is impossible without the ability to bend her knee or ankle. “Wait…”

  He pauses, turning in a wide circle until the seat he’s offering is resting between them.

  “Just…let me get in myself.”

  The man doesn’t laugh when she slams herself down on the metal, gracelessly denting it with her elbows. Without a word, he begins to wheel her past the walls of the heated greenhouses while she rides awkwardly over the hastily poured gravel roads.

  “Fun fact: Wheel-barrels are designed to carry heavy loads.”

  Emi ignores Bee’s crude joke, pointing her eyes at the thin window in the next building up in the maze. Did you see that, Bee? Was there someone in that window?

  “You saw his yacht; this is a farm that makes money.”

  Meaning what?

  “There are bound to be cattle.”

  No, they looked like human eyes.

  “And?”

  “What kind of farm is this?” Emi asks aloud.

  Jashi finishes a hard turn down another alley of buildings before answering. “Whatever kind of farm the city most demands.”

  Still using her Australian accent to separate herself from Emi, Bee adds, “And is in least supply.”

  “Naturally,” Jashi agrees.

  Emi looks around, seeing nothing but rising walls boxing her in, “What city?”

  “I’ll show her.” Bee pulls up a map of the island, zooming in on the city. On her display, Mitsune appears painted, like a demarcation line running down the island and splitting it in two just on the other side of the volcano they currently are standing far from the top of.

  Jashi nods up to the sky, “Other than the city’s lights on a particularly dark and clear night, only place you can see Mitsune is from the summit. It’s the only place that can afford high-volume orders, overpopulated as it is, which makes it the only place any serious farmer is willing to do business.”

  Emi zooms in on the city name above her map, effectively pulling up additional details of the location: Population: 46,289…46,282…46,283…

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  Ignoring the rapidly shifting population, Emi asks, “What are they buying from you at the moment?”

  Bee corrects her: “From us…what are they buying from us?”

  Jashi answers, “The usual.”

  Bee explains, “Which, in a place that’s already too fat to realize it will never be satisfied, is usually meat and dairy.”

  “This is a cattle farm?”

  “Yes, it’s a cattle farm…” Jashi admits like he’s very aware he’s getting away on a technicality.

  “But it’s the kind of cattle that survives famine and overpopulation," Bee offers again.

  Emi wiggles in her seat, her stomach leaping into her throat just before the wheel bounces over a particularly oversized pebble. The mobile speaker sounds like it’s jumping up-and-down, “What kind of meat do we sell?”

  The wheel-barrel takes one last hard turn, moves up a particularly steep grade, then stops at the base of the sliding paper door of the farmhouse after a few hard bumps up the wooden steps. The sound of fast footsteps makes Emi sit up just in time for a sticky hand to poke her in the eye. She grabs it, lifting the creature in front of her face: Inmate Number 384544 (N/A). None. Cyborg. Specialization: Chaos. Balance: N/A. Personality: Chaotic Neutral.

  The child giggles as it swings, hanging in the air with just one arm.

  What the fuck…there are children on the island?

  “I believe the technical term for baby cattle, is calves.”

  I thought people with ‘N/A’ for their name were volunteers. Emi sets the child down but doesn’t let go of its hand no matter how hard it squirms.

  “They are…unless they were born here.”

  The child who didn’t choose to be here screams at the top of its lungs, “I hungry!”

  Emi recoils, suddenly feeling the itch to make sure her raised hair is still on her head. What’s the status of our companion, by the way?

  “Took you long enough to ask…Futakuchi-onna offered to stay behind.”

  And you allowed it? But my teeth!

  “Trust my processes.”

  The child repeats, now crying instead of screaming. “Mommy, I hungry!”

  Emi tosses it aside, “I’m not your mommy.”

  “Care to explain?” Jashi commands Bee as he helps the child up before sliding open the door to his home and moving in.

  Bee pulls up the contract that brought them here, highlighting the applicable section—Family Management: Traditional Expectations.

  Emi tips out of her seat. Absolutely not!

  “Too late. The contract has been signed.”

  Not by me!

  “I have Power of Attorney.”

  I didn’t agree to that.

  "Your father did."

  When?

  Jashi reappears at the door with an unoiled wheelchair. Emi swaps seats, slapping Jashi’s hands aside and wheeling herself across the threshold of her new home while the child screams over her squeaking wheels.

  A message pops in her overlay: Dinner is at 18:06. You should find everything you need in the kitchen at the rear of the house. Emi turns to glare at Jashi just as he slides the door shut and begins work on the more manly farm-tasks.

  …

  In the middle of the night, when all is quiet, Emi flips on her night vision and uses her arms to crawl outside, pausing after every creak in the wooden floor. She follows the faint line left behind by the wheel-barrel like she is trying to brush it away with her chest, tracking backwards down the gravel path until she finds herself at the locked door to the building. A retinal scanner stops her from even trying to enter.

  Instead, she pulls herself up to the window and presses her face against the glass where she saw the eyes on her ride in.

  Inside, the place looks like a warehouse, neatly labelled high shelves lining the space. At the base of the line closest, straight stalls hold well-fed inmates in place. On a shelf above them, a row of women sits calmly while pumps pull off-white fluid—almost the color of Emi’s shirt—through long lines that drain into glass bottles. Emi zooms in on one of the bottles, noting the guarantee stamped there: Certified Human.

  She takes turns focusing on both levels of inmates, noting they all have one thing in common: Human…not a single cyborg in the bunch.

  “I assumed when I saw how good his reviews are. Artificial parts taint the flavor.”

  Emi meets the eye of an inmate who just woke up to see her. He smiles and welcomes her like he is so high he’s floating on cloud nine. She forgets to smile back when she returns the wave. Bee, what did you agree to?

  “I agreed to keep you safe…if making ourselves rich is the optimal way to do that, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  At what cost?

  “Oh please, like you’ve never butchered a human before.”

  Not an innocent one.

  “What about the boy on Okinawa Island?”

  Emi continues to stare at the man in the stall. He wasn’t innocent…how do you know about—

  “Do you really still believe every lie your father told you?” When Emi doesn’t respond, Bee tries to comfort her. “Besides, everyone on this island is as good as dead already; Jashi Farms provides the most comfortable end-of-life living conditions anywhere in the entire world.”

  Everyone except for us.

  “Except for us what?”

  You said everyone on this island is as good as dead…you mean everyone except for us.

  Bee doesn’t respond, saying instead, “We need to get back to bed before Jashi wakes up and has us killed for breach of contract.”