Real Meat From Real People

Warning: Title might be slightly misleading, depending on what *specific* kind of cannibalism you enjoy, but my protagonist canonically had it checked by a lawyer, so we should be okay. I propose you figure out how exactly you feel about meat, before you start reading this, because there's a lot of the stuff, in this story. Specifically, lab-grown meat products cultivated from human cells, very much intended for human consumption, very classy though. The story is also meant for human consumption, and is also very classy. Sorry, that's a lie. It's gross and weird and you probably shouldn't tell anyone you've read it, but you do you. It also escalates to a monsterfucking disaster, so there's that. Have fun, if you dare.

Real Meat From Real People

~1~

Magille glared at her colleagues - that small circle of deplorable nerds in lab coats gawking at her like a little family of hapless lemmings. Then she glared at the row of meat-growing vats behind her, burst open and throbbing with half-burnt growths of the unspeakable. Then back at the lemmings. "So, in short, this is a disaster. We got only one day to produce another batch of prototypes, before our esteemed guests arrive for the big presentation. Clock is ticking, my pretties."

"We CAN do it, though?" Tiffany meekly suggested. "As long as the cell growth accelerator is running, and we got no more than the average number of glitches? We still got the donor's DNA, right?"

"Wrong, Tiff. It ALL blew up last night. I already probed the mutated shit, completely unusable now. But here's what's working in our favour, regarding that precious tissue sample we need: every single one of us, as far as I was told, is human. Complete with human DNA."

Magille let that sink in for a moment.

Brusche scoffed. "You want volunteers, then?"

He was standing a bit further away, leaning against a dormant robot arm, his own arms crossed over his broad chest. His lab coat was casually unbuttoned, making it look a bit like a white cape.

"Yes, Brusche, I want volunteers. One, that is."

"Hehe... Gross."

"Oh, grow up, boy," Magille protested. "YES, it's a gross thing, we're doing here. What exactly did you expect, when you joined a project to grow human-based charcuterie?"

Brusche closed his eyes and massaged his forehead.

"Mulling over my life choices as we speak."

Tiffany narrowed her eyes. "I mean, seeing how YOU were the one to bring it up, and since you're the boss, boss...?"

"Actschually," Magille hissed, "I was thinking the GENTLEMEN could step up, on this one."

Tiffany nodded. "Oh yeah, that is an EXCELLENT idea, girl. Can you imagine, watching Professor Spuhl take a big, greedy bite of a canapé that was made of..."

"NO," Magille insisted, "I CANNOT."

Both women shuddered.

Brusche was about to say something, and clearly it wasn't going to be anything especially gentleman-like, but it was Pete who jumped right in, his round face glowing with glee.

"I'll do it. What's a little flesh, for the good of the project? Besides..."

"Oh, that reminds me," Magille interrupted him with a sudden sense of urgency, "ANYONE but you, Pete."

"Awww, what?" Pete protested, sounding genuinely disappointed.

"You are fucking gross, bro," Brusche said kindly, reaching out to rub his pal's spongy shoulder.

"DNA is DNA!" Pete whined.

"Yes Pete," Magille said, "And yours is gross. I am NOT gonna feed our investors a slice of pasty skinned troglodyte. NO offense."

"HOW is that no offense?" Pete pointed out.

Tiffany snickered. "Could you imagine, a schnitzel with acne...?"

"I believe that is called 'cordon bleu'," Brusche helpfully interjected.

"You guys are amazing," Pete grunted.

Magille repressed her gag reflex. "WELL, then I guess that SETTLES it."

Everyone turned towards Brusche with big, round eyes.

"NO," Brusche observed, "Absolutely NOT. That's NOT in my contract. I am NOT available for this."

"Again," Pete said, "I, on the other hand, am VERY available."

"We are quite aware," Magille snapped. "Brusche, we need that tissue sample. This is not a debate. If we mess this up, we can kiss the whole damn lab good bye."

"Look at it like this, Bruschey," Pete said, a stupid grin spreading across his squishy face, "Professor Spuhl isn't gonna be our only guest of honour. Would you REALLY deny a Ms. Yuko TAKENAWA a taste of your sweet flesh...?"

He said that last part in an upsettingly melodious tone.

"THANK you, Pete, for consistently reminding us why you're not the chosen one," Magille cried out. "Brusche, get over here!"

She had already grabbed the tool they had affectionately named "the cookie cutter".

"Magille, you are NOT gonna...!" Brusche barked.

But too late. She was already charging towards him.

Primordial survival instincts kicked in, and he ran. "Mother-FUCKER...!"

"GRAB HIM!" Magille screeched. "You are NOT getting away, Mister...!"

It was here that Dr. Tiffany Bloabeck decided to earn her paycheck.

Having strategically placed herself right behind a doorframe, Tiffany innocently stuck her leg out. Brusche fell, and immediately Magille leaped onto him, firmly planting her ass on the small of his back. She noted that his waist was surprisingly dainty, for such a big guy. Ideal for pinning him down.

"Tiff, you TRAITOR!" Brusche cried out.

"Sorry, dude. I really need this job."

"Excellent work, Bloabeck!" Magille gasped, out of breath, "Hop on board. Let's get this over with!"

With no hesitation, Tiffany plopped down on Brusche's back behind her, while Magille scanned the material she had to work with, and took aim...

"Yeah... Hehe... This will do NICELY...!"

"You can't be serious," Brusche wheezed, "My ASS, Magille? Have you no shame?"

She didn't. She was able to pull down his pants; good thing they were sweatpants, no belt.

"Pete? ANY help?" Brusche pleaded, twisting his neck to glare at Dr. Pete Colung, who was staring down at them. "Oh, why am I even asking..."

"This should have been ME!"

"Bloody hell."

This would do VERY nicely, indeed, Magille mused. Brusche's buttocks were round and compact, but quite meaty. Not too hairy, definitely a bonus.

"Brusche is gonna get schcooped," Tiffany sang.

Magille tightened her grip around the cookie cutter. Trying to steady her breath, now.

The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, hot and forceful. Powerful, powerful stuff. Her tight bun had come loose, and now thin strands of sweaty black hair were hanging into her field of vision. She briefly took off her glasses, to wipe the pearls of transpiration off her face.

"Can I get something to bite down on, at least?!" Brusche pleaded.

Magille handed him one of her shoes. Still, good thing the walls and doors of their lab were sound-proof.

~2~

"Did you scoop up my ENTIRE ass," Brusche moaned. "I am not gonna be able to sit for weeks..."

"Perfect," Magille snorted, "We're not PAYING you to sit on your ass, man."

She briefly looked up from her patient, to leer at the other two clowns, currently busy cleaning up and getting the growing vats operational again. "That goes for everyone here! We will work around the clock, to make this happen. We got 18 hours left. We're gonna need every single one..."

She turned back to resume working on Brusche's rear end. He was spread out in front of her on an operating table. Since Magille was a merciful superior, she had given him a local sedative, once the... extraction had been completed.

"Hold still now, big guy... This will just take one more second..."

She HAD done quite a number on his poor ass, to be sure. It was only fair that she'd be the one to patch him up again. Thank science for regenerative growth serum.

It was a good sample, though. With these things, it was" the bigger, the better". Plenty for their machines to work with.

From a nice, young, healthy specimen, to boot. Magille gently let a thumb wander over the un-scooped buttock. Firm, but giving in just the right amount. Truth be told, she kinda liked good old Brusche better for this than that model who had donated the original sample - for a fairly high commission, by the way.

More... Authentic, that way. Organic. Boy next door kind of stuff.

Real Meat From Real People.

She let her eyes wander over his butt, then up his back to his scalp, and she smiled. Good boy.

There was a little flutter in her chest. The adrenaline had given way to endorphins.

As much as she liked to complain, Magille loved her job. She resisted the urge to give that gorgeous butt a little kiss. She settled for a little slap on the intact buttock, with her flat hand.

"Alright. Pull your pants back up, sir, and make yourself useful," she sighed, with a little pang of regret. She discreetly wiped off the drop of spit that had formed at the corner of her mouth.

Magille walked over to their launch incubator to take a look at the progress. Brusche's substantial butt sample was sitting in what looked like a large petri dish, soaking up nutrients, illuminated by eerie blue light, under a set of pulse emitters stimulating cell growth. With the method she and her team had pioneered, cell growth was exponential. Right now, you couldn't see much, it mostly looked a bit more swollen than when she had first put it in, creepily twitching on occasion, but by the time it would reach steady growth, you'd be able to observe the expansion with your naked eye. Then it would be time to slice it up and distribute it among the heavy-duty growing vats. Over a certain threshold, the meat would arguably grow a little *too* fast. That was probably what had doomed their previous batch last night - the failsafes had failed to contain it. Today, Magille would make sure she and her henchmen would watch over the meat personally, until it was all done.

"Coming along nicely!" Magille sang. "Status report, Pete?"

"Vats 1 to 12 are up and running again, boss," Dr. Colung replied from across the room. "Brusche is busy with Number 13."

Magille spotted Brusche furiously pulling tendrils of half-barbecued meat out of the high-tech cylinder. To his credit, he really had wasted no time getting back to work.

"Excellent. Make it snappy, Brusche - the progenitor sample is almost ready for the vats, now."

Brusche grunted and didn't bother to look at her. Pulled a bit harder at the meat. The silent treatment, then. Understandable: the poor boy was, quite literally, butthurt.

Magille snorted and went to inspect the other vats.

She took a deep breath.

"This is gonna work. I can't believe this is actually gonna work?"

~3~

Indeed, just a few hours later, the meat vats were positively humming with activity. The combined mass of what had once been a piece of Brusche's ass now weighed several kilos.

"You never get used to this shit," Tiffany marveled, as the team observed the very promising growth in the large glass tube of Vat 5. The dancing lights from inside the machine drew mysterious patterns on their faces. Good thing the pulse couldn't get through the glass, or pretty soon all of them could have been unshapely meat blobs themselves. Of course, Magille's dear mother would have observed that this wouldn't have changed a thing, about her figure.

"This one seems to have by far the best texture," Magille declared. "We'll take THIS one for the real fancy pieces."

She turned her head to look at Vat 9. "Unlike SOME of them, may I add. Holy Cannoli."

The blob in Vat 9 was almost the size of a human baby now, but covered in dense, black hair. Butt hair.

"We could shave it," Tiffany proposed.

"Or we could experiment with fur coats", Pete added. "Real Fur From Real People."

"Do you shave your butt, Brusche?" Tiffany inquired, giving Brusche a little poke.

"I'm gonna shave YOUR butt," Brusche protested.

"Stay focused, people!" Magille sighed. "We're gonna put the hairy one on ice, for analysis. Alright. I think we can begin with phase 3: Pete, you start with the bologna. Tiffany, cocktail sausages, then salami. Brusche... bacon. Hehe."

Brusche just glared at her.

"Still upset with me, huh. Fair enough. As for me, I'll do serrano ham. Miam."

Her stomach rumbled audibly. "Excuse me. Maybe we should grab lunch, first?"

"More like dinner," Tiffany scoffed, pointing at her wrist watch.

Immediately, more belly rumbles could be heard from the team. Except for Pete, that is.

"Well," he said, "I miiiight have already snuck a bite, earlier. You know, for testing purposes?"

"Of course you have, bro," Brusche sighed.

"Want some exclusive feedback, on the taste of your sweet ass?"

"For fuck's sake, let me eat something first, while I still have an appetite."

After they had devoured their food reserves, they finally got to the really fun part.

Each of them took a section of the samples, and started to guide the cell growth on specialized work benches. At this stage, it still took a lot of human guidance, to turn the growing meat into the exact shape and consistency required. But Magille had no doubt that with more funding, they could perfect the automated systems until they could get some real assembly lines going. Hehe: Ass-embly.

Her goal had never been to make artisanal luxury products. Yes, that would be a necessary first step: Build a client base of wealthy creeps, accumulate the capital, get society introduced to the concept. First, it would be a scandal, the gossip about evil rich cannibals would practically write itself. That would only make it more alluring to the top 10 percent. In turn, curiosity would get the better of people. It would be a novelty product, a dare, consumed "ironically". But soon enough, it would catch on, get normalized. That had always been her plan. Ultimately, Real Meat From Real People had to be brought to the masses. Her gift to the whole damn human race.

That's why they really, really had to stick the landing. The big presentation with the investors had to go off without a hitch. Everything depended on this. Everything.

Even as Magille tried to stay focused on the serrano taking shape under her watch, her mind wandered back to the presentation. It was no secret that their Dr. Pete Colung had taken a - presumably very one-sided - fancy to Ms. Takenawa, for purely hormonal reasons. Magille, however, knew Ms. Takenawa as not only one of the top 10 richest women on the continent, but also head of a big meat packing conglomerate, and several restaurant chains. An infamously dangerous business woman with rumored ties to organized crime. Magille was quite scared of her, and also quite desperately wanted to *be* her.

Steady now... Steady...

"Ms. Takenawa!" Tiffany joyfully cried out from somewhere behind her, "I didn't know you had access to our lab! You are early!"

Magille shrieked and almost pissed herself.

She whirled around to see Tiffany grinning like a shark over a cup of coffee, standing very much by herself, with no Yuko Takenawa in sight.

"Har Har. Gotcha."

"Not cool, Bloabeck!", Magille sobbed, "NOT cool! I almost head a heart attack!"

"You're making it too easy, boss."

"Don't you have charcuterie to grow?"

"Already done. I have become quite the expert, if I say so myself. Wanna do a taste test now?"

"Gotta keep my eyes on the serrano. But yes," Magille shuddered, "we should do a test soon. Time is almost up..."

~4~

Magille made sure at least one of them kept an eye on the product at any given time, but in the end, that "at least one" was mostly her.

She had ordered her platoon to camp in the lab, making makeshift beds out of whatever they could grab - Tiffany, for instance, had rolled up in a large drawer, like a cat. They had turned off the lights, and so only the dim glow of the equipment remained. Like hypnotized, Magille stared into the glass cylinders, dreaming without sleep, the strange glow reflected in her round glasses. This was her dark kingdom, and she was its queen.

Her big old-fashioned alarm clock whirled around like a propeller, hours gone in a flash, and just before it started to ring, she held it high above her head and carried it to the middle of the room.

"... Aaaand it's showtime, lady and gentlemen! Get dressed, assholes! This is not a drill! Final countdown!"

Like the undead, her team crawled out of various nests and crevices, groaning mournfully.

Magille took a deep breath. "I know, I know. Let's give it our all, let's take this HOME! We got this. We GOT this! We're gonna CRUSH it."

"Feeling crushed, alright," Pete mewled.

Undeterred, Magille reached out with both arms, and grabbed them all, making a scientist-bouquet, towering over her person by virtue of her being the shortest member of the team. "We're gonna fix that! Wash up, and get dressed!"

She pulled Tiffany out of the bunch, and pushed the others aside. "Girls shower first! Guys shower most! But before that, the two of you will do one last check on the equipment, and wheel the vats and the samples to the auditorium! Make sure those clowns from catering got us the hors d'oeuvres and drinks I ordered!"

Poor Tiffany was clearly still asleep as Magille rubbed shampoo into her hair, and when she put lipstick on her, and only fully woke up as her boss rammed the earrings into place. Magille had picked them to ensure that they'd match the party dress.

Both of their outfits, Magille had decided on with a clear design philosophy - lots of red, like fresh meat or splashes of blood, but of course very classy. It helped that Tiffany was a natural redhead. With her natural tall, gracile shape, the form-fitting dress gave Tiff a real slick appearance, like a model. The boys would get elegant black suits - but with neckties that were all the flashier. Everything in service of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Today was the day to impress.

With her relentless efficiency, the both of them were fully dressed by the time the guys had returned from their errand at the other side of the campus.

Even Brusche let out an impressed little whistle, when he put on his suit. Put a sly grin on Magille's face.

"Tailor-made, obviously," Magille boasted. "And you whined that it was invasive, when I took all of your measurements..."

She noticed that Pete's necktie was off, and straightened it sharply enough to get a nice gagging sound out of him.

"The catering...?"

"Everything's there," Pete said with a gulp. "Honestly, when they said they did it all exactly like you asked, they looked kinda scared."

"Geez, I wonder why that is..." Brusche grunted.

When Magille lurched for him, he nonchalantly took a step to the side, and straightened his necktie himself.

"We'll make this work. We HAVE to," Magille gasped. "Onwards, to the auditorium! One last rehearsal."

~5~

Magille blinked.

You know how it is, with the big things in life: They seem to be so far-away, and the wait is agonizing. And then, boom, it happens, it's done.

The presentation, with those slides that she had designed and redesigned for months, it had all spilled out of her in what felt like double the speed of any of the rehearsals. Had she missed something?

About fifty pairs of eyeballs were looking up at her, out of the dark. Then, someone started to clap. It turned into general, enthusiastic applause.

Oh, thank goodness.

With a smile that felt more like a grimace of terror, she took a deep bow. It was a miracle she didn't lose her balance, with her fancy high heels, and fall flat on her face. She gestured towards her colleagues, to invite them onto the stage. Not so much because she was all that eager to share the glory, but because she felt so utterly exposed.

"Thank you! Thank you so much," Magille gasped. "We'd now like to give you the opportunity to ask any questions you may have."

The first couple of questions were of a purely technical nature. Professor Spuhl was the biggest offender, in that regard, as expected - his questions were a roundabout way to showcase his own expertise. Like a school teacher trying to take credit for the achievements of his students.

That was good, though, really - Spuhl was a precious ally, that way. Free advertisement. Driving home how awfully INTERESTING their project was. It helped that he was a bit of a celebrity, in their field, his tweet jacket and blue pair of glasses a sort of brand.

The rest of the questions were also fairly predictable - boring shit about ethics, the legal side of it, how the samples would be sourced, and so on. Of course, some smug asshole with dangerous half-knowledge had to ask an asinine question about prions.

But suddenly, Ms. Takenawa raised her hand. Her tiny, slender, pale hand, with blood red nails. Immediately, the whole room fell dead silent.

"I am intrigued, Dr. Herzbluth. But the real question is, what do you have to show for it? When will we get a look at those products, that you have promised us?"

"Truly, I am glad you asked, Ms. Takenawa," Magille gasped, fighting to keep her heart beating in her chest. "Dr. Colung? Mr. Fenlength? If you'd be so kind."

With the appropriate gravitas, Pete and Brusche wheeled in the catering carts. They were illuminated by their own light sources, making it look like the meat was floating into the room on white ships straight down from the scientifically accurate version of heaven.

Hesitantly at first, people started to sample the meat. Magille's tension almost killed her.

And then she saw the first guest reach for seconds.

This is working, she thought. Holy shit, this is working, this is SO working.

Oh, thank goodness.

The first nods of approval. More and more people figured out that her serrano ham was the crown jewel of the spread, and so it was rapidly melting away.

Oh, thank goodness.

Curiously, Ms. Takenawa had stayed at the back of the crowd, silent, observing. In her pitch-black jumpsuit, she seemed to meld with the shadows, under the pleasantly dimmed lights of the auditorium. Maybe she had too much class to fight over food at a buffet. But as soon as things had calmed down a bit, she took out a fancy little etui, and produced a little silver fork.

If I die tonight, Magille thought, please let it be on that fork.

Ms. Takenawa plunged her fork into an unassuming cocktail sausage. She brought it to her mouth. She took a little bite.

And then, she raised an eyebrow. An eyebrow of approval. And this is how Magille discovered what heaven feels like.

Overwhelmed, she held on to a cocktail table, and let her eyes wander over the scene:

Professor Spuhl seemed to be lecturing Tiffany about the basics of biology, while Tiffany was doing that thing where she was discreetly massaging her temples, seeking to finally pierce the secret to make faces melt with the sheer power of her mind.

Brusche was entertaining two young female guests near the stage. One of them was impishly playing with his tie; Magille recognized her as a bigshot professor from one of the neighbouring labs on campus. Pffft. Magille was of half a mind to saunter over there and reveal to those girls that they had been eating the charming gentleman's ass, all along. Naaah - Brusche could have this; it was only fair. Though clearly, the fancy designer suit she had provided for him did most of the work. Even Pete looked like a fucking hunk, in that gear; neckbeard and blonde ponytail and all.

Now, where was Pete? Hopefully, not drooling on anyone. Magille discovered him at the other end of the buffet, recommending various samples to a group of guests. The perfect sophisticated host. Would you look at that.

As if in a trance, Magille pulled a grateful Tiffany out of mansplaining purgatory and paired her up with a foreign investor. Then she plunged right into the crowd herself. She talked to whoever she could grab. Laughed at every joke. Remembered everyone's name. Shook hands, let them kiss hers, kissed cheeks. She turned around so fast, her fancy evening dress was twirling.

And then, inevitably, she was face to face with Ms. Takenawa herself.

"Good work, Dr. Herzbluth," Ms. Takenawa said, and to Magille, it was as if the rest of the universe immediately evaporated. "I was skeptical at first, I have to admit. Yours is not the first project, of this kind."

She gestured with her little fork. A little sparkle of silver in the twilight. "Most endeavors like this, they are lackluster. Bloodless, ironically. Not you. I can tell that you are truly sinking your teeth into this. If you pardon the imagery. That's good. That's how it should be."

"Thank you, Ms. Takenawa," Magille wheezed. "This means a lot to me, coming from you. And you are right... This project, it truly is my passion."

The business lady nodded, as if filing that away. Then she cleared her throat.

"You know, the most crucial aspect, in all of this, is speed," Ms. Takenawa said, scrutinizing Magille over the rim of her designer glasses. "You need to think bigger, with these things. Suppose, for instance, I have... special business partners over, at one of my private resorts. Conceivably, what would be the top speed, going from harvested sample to finished product?"

She examined the bit of Serrano, stuck on her elegant little fork. "In and of itself, lab-grown meat is old tech, at this point. What you are proposing, it must aim higher. It must be a genuine SENSATION. This is HUMAN FLESH, we are talking about; go big or go home. So, tell me, Herzbluth... If we agree to invest in your project, will you be able to create the product on demand, in as little time as it takes to order at a restaurant?"

"Not only that," Magille blurted out, "We're already there! Indeed, I could grow a finished product right here, in front of your eyes!"

Ms. Takenawa raised her magnificent eyebrows again. "Show me."

Brusche, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, grabbed Magille by the arm. "Ms. Takenawa. If you would kindly excuse us for just a second..."

"Brusche!! Are you out of your mind?" Magille hissed. But he had already dragged her away. "This is..."

"Yes, yes, it's Girlboss Prime, in the flesh. You're super horny, in a masochistic kind of way. Still, we can't rush these things. What, are you going to fire up one of the vats, right here, right now? Crank it up? That's fucking INSANE. We have no idea what could happen..."

"We save our project, that's what's gonna happen!" Magille protested.

"I have to agree with the Brusche," Pete intervened. "That's uncharted territory. Just tell her we need to do more tests. We can't afford that sort of gambit. Not now."

"Tiff?" Magille cried, turning towards Dr. Bloabeck, who had also been drawn to the ruckus.

Tiffany scratched her head, and looked away. "It's risky... I don't know, Magille. Theoretically, it should work...? But you know what happened, with the previous batch. There is so much that can go wrong..."

Magille turned her head, and saw that Yuko Takenawa was still standing where she had left her. Her beautiful, scary eyebrows still raised in exactly the same way.

"Executive decision!" Dr. Magille Herzbluth cried out. "We're gonna do it, and it will be FLAWLESS! End of discussion. This is an order."

She herded her protesting colleagues towards the equipment that she had brought on stage during her presentation, now sitting in a dark corner. All the growing vats were here, with what remained of their fleshy contents held in careful stasis. Only Vat 9 was completely empty, its hairy contents had stayed behind in the lab, safely stored away in a specimen freezer.

"This is a BAD idea, Magille," Brusche insisted, grabbing her by the shoulders.

Without skipping a beat, she rose up to the tip of her toes, grabbed his face, and kissed him on the mouth. Hard. While he was still stunned, she did the same to Tiffany, and Pete.

"Trust me, you guys! We can DO this! PLEASE! Trust me! Let me have this. I am begging you! On my KNEES, if I have to."

"Fuck it," Tiffany wheezed. "Where is that extension cord..."

"That's the spirit!" Magille beamed. "Pete, Brusche, give her a hand..."

Under the excited stares of the crowd, the team brought the equipment to the centre of the campus' auditorium.

"Any requests?" Magille grinned at Ms. Takenawa, perhaps showing a few too many of her teeth.

"Steak tartare," the business lady proposed, taking a sip from her flute of champagne. "About 500 grams, I reckon? That translates roughly to servings for two people, at one of my fancier establishments."

"Perfect!" Magille wheezed. And it truly was perfect. Something raw and uncomplicated, but delicious. Seemed like Ms. Takenawa was truly rooting for them. "Dr. Bloabeck, Dr. Colung, Mr. Fenlength? You know the drill."

The team rapidly assembled the growing vats and the rest of the equipment. Brusche had to do a quick run to the laboratory, for some missing pieces.

"Behind me," Magille started her impromptu bonus presentation, while the rest of the team was still at work, "You see the growing vats from earlier, with the cellular raw material we have grown from our sample. That kind of quantity is typically generated over a span of roughly seven hours, based on current standard procedures. Based on our research, however, the process can be further accelerated. If we take into account that the item we want to produce for you now will only require a fraction of the earlier mass, I am confident that we will be able to demonstrate *near instantaneous* results." She risked a quick glance over her shoulder. Damn, she was sweating like a sow, even under the dimmed lights and the good air conditioning. "Now, esteemed guests, if you would take a step back..."

Technically, there was no specific safety reason to ask the crowd to give them more room, but a little showmanship couldn't hurt. Plus, Magille was starting to feel a wee bit claustrophobic. Under her fancy dress, her sweat was now a little waterfall, running down her back and into her ass crack.

She approached one of the cylinders, and let Pete help her put her lab gloves on. With a nasty looking syringe, she extracted a fresh sample from the blob in Vat 13. Just a little piece.

"A mutant from a mutant," Brusche hissed into her ear. "We are SO playing with fire, woman."

"I could always go back to the source, if you prefer," Magille grunted behind clenched teeth.

She carefully transferred the sample over to the progenitor incubator, and they watched it do its magic.

"Dr. Colung, the time?"

"Four minutes, Dr. Herzbluth."

"Excellent. As you can all see, within the incubator, the sample has already started to expand. For growing 500 grams of meat, the launch process should be done right about... Now."

Tiffany and Brusche helped her transfer the progenitor to the growing Vat 9.

"Uhm..." Magille whispered to Brusche. "Are we sure the... Hairy business, from earlier, had nothing to do with the hardware...?"

"A bit late to think of that, Doc. But no. I can assure you, I double checked, and switched out all the crucial components just to be safe."

"Thank fucking goodness. Alright. Let's do this."

Out loud, she said: "Like I explained earlier, in the growing vat, the meat will now undergo exponentially accelerated growth. It will absorb and convert the nutri-liquid, with a metabolic speed unmatched by any regular multicellular organism. Half a kilogram of raw material should be ready in about... ten more minutes, at which point it will be switched over to the workbench, to be shaped into the final product under our direction..."

To be on the safe side, she discreetly turned the dial just a teensy level higher.

~6~

"Five minutes in," Pete whispered into her ear.

It sounded like a death sentence: They were at just a little over 100 grams. At this rate, they wouldn't make it. Why the FUCK did she have to say 10 minutes? Why not 15? 20? Two weeks?

"It's okay," Tiffany suggested, "A few minutes more shouldn't hurt?" Tiffany checked the metrics again. "Wait, nope. Growth is stagnating. We got ourselves something of a plateau. That happens, sometimes..."

Shoot me now, Magille thought. People were starting to whisper.

"Something the matter, Dr. Herzbluth?" Ms. Takenawa asked. Her voice sounded friendly, if a little amused. That made it so much worse.

When you looked at the tycoon's outfit more closely - and at that moment, Magille was absorbing every sensation in excruciating detail - you realized it wasn't entirely black at all. There were subtle silvery reflections - hidden tiger stripes.

"No problem at all," Magille blurted out, fighting to sound cheerful. "To meet the, admittedly, ambitious time limit I have imposed on myself... Haha... I will now increase the frequency. It is as you said, go big or go home, right?"

She didn't have to turn her head to guess the expression on the face of Brusche Fenlength. Tiffany was biting her nails, and Pete had grown suspiciously pale around the nose. But they knew better than to try and stop her.

With a gulp, she turned the dial up to maximum. That got a little spike of activity out of the sample... But not much more. Seven minutes in.

Okay, okay. No biggie. All eyes on her. Cool, cool. Fine, then. She would handle this like a big girl.

She hammered into the keys of the interface, accessed the program... and swiftly brute-forced an energy input bigger than any they had ever tried before, casually eliminating each and every single safeguard. There were upsetting buzzing and fizzing sounds.

"Growth accelerating again," Tiffany declared with a shaky voice.

Please, please.

There. The growth was once again visible to the naked eye. Not only that, it was really picking up the pace.

The product had the aspect of a beating heart, growing larger with every heartbeat.

Magille sharply sucked in about an hour worth of air through her nose. She reached blindly, and someone from her team - she couldn't process who - grabbed her hand.

One minute left. And they would make it. They were racing past 450 grams.

"500 grams...!" Magille cried out. "With ten seconds to spare!"

The crowd broke out into cheers, applause even.

Victory. Winner, winner, minced meat dinne...

"Growth process cannot be halted!" Pete gasped. "HOLY SHIT, you guys..."

No need to elaborate. Everyone could see it. The meat sample didn't just keep going, it slurped up the rest of the nutri-liquid in the vat like it was nothing.

"Alright, that's it!" Brusche bellowed and sharply pulled the plug. Magille blinked, observing the scene like it was happening somewhere far away. Tuned out the confused chatter and the occasional gasps of the audience.

But as drastic as Brusche's intervention had been, it was too late.

The vat burst open, and out flopped the mass of flesh, still pulsating.

"What the HELL...!" That was someone from the audience.

The flesh grew tendrils, snaking over the floor. Hundreds of them, thin like spaghetti noodles. An elderly gentleman let out a high-pitched shriek and jumped out of the way. Ms. Takenawa just took a dainty step aside, and another sip from her champagne.

One of the tendrils hit a buffet cart, and crawled upwards like a vine growing in time lapse.

It hit a piece of food - later study of the security footage would reveal that it was an octopus canapé - and dug into it. A sloshing sound could be heard.

The core of the meat blob on the floor twitched. Once. Twice.

And then the MOTHERFUCKING thing crawled so fast onto the table, it became a blur.

Now, pretty much everyone was screaming. Maybe Magille was screaming, too, but she couldn't really tell.

"WOAH!" Pete cried out. "AMBULATORY! We got AMBULATORY! How THE FUCK..."

The smartest people among the crowd decided that this was their cue to extract themselves from the premises, with lots of screaming, and flailing arms. Far more people stayed behind, though, wide-eyed and seemingly frozen in place.

The blob meanwhile - there was no other way to interpret this - was gorging itself on the buffet. Absorbing entrées and Real Meat to a cacophony of slurping and gurgling sounds. And it kept growing. With each of its rhythmic convulsions, it swelled in size.

"Brusche!" Dr. Herzbluth protested. "DO something!"

Brusche sprinted towards the monstrosity with what looked like a wooden lance, like the knights of old, his tie flying in the wind like a battle flag.

Upon closer inspection, his lance turned out to be a broomstick. Just in front of the mutant, he came to a screeching halt, and gave the meat an inquisitive poke.

That, of course, achieved absolutely nothing.

But when Brusche attempted a second poke, a new tendril shot out of the blob, seized the offending broomstick, wrapped around it, and broke it in half. Brusche ran away.

Super.

With another violent convulsion, something even more amazing happened. The blob rapidly changed its colours, circling through various shades of red, blue and green. At the same time, it grew completely new structures: tentacles, a few of them even with suction cups; fins, flippers, and protrusions that started to look like human limbs.

"Watch out!" Tiffany screamed. "The vats! Don't let it get to..."

Too late. One powerful tentacle, thick like a fully grown python, darted towards the equipment, and shattered the glass of Vat 6. The monstrum swiftly absorbed the flesh and nutri-liquid inside, and then proceeded to cracking open the remaining vats with dozens of new tentacles.

At this point, the flailing, gurgling monstrosity had become so large and heavy that it could reach the ceiling of the auditorium with the tips of its uppermost appendages. With an unceremonious metal squeak, the buffet cart it had been sitting on came apart, and was flattened against the floor.

And then, a firework of colourful tentacles, darting out in all directions.

Reaching out into the crowd.

"YES," Pete cried out, "TAKE ME, Come on! Take me NOW!"

A tentacle wrapped around Pete's waist, and he was transported through the air at breakneck speed. As he was zipping by, he ripped off his vest and his shirt.

More and more people were getting snatched up.

"MY CREATION!" Dr. Magille Herzbluth screamed, raising her arms high above her head. "IT'S MY CREATION! MY CREATION! IT'S MY CREATION...!"

A timid little voice at the back of her mind opined that she might have gone insane.

Speaking of madness - if you recall the traditional definition of the term, that is - Brusche had found a second broomstick somewhere, and went for another frontal attack. Magille didn't even bother paying attention to the outcome of that effort.

Instead, she had sunk down on her knees, her arms still raised, taking in the utter inferno of flesh expanding in front of her like an explosion in slow motion. The heat flowing out of the Real Meat engulfed her.

"Look at me NOW, MOTHER!", Magille screeched.

Watching without seeing, Magille found that Dr. Pete Colung had been lifted high above the ground. His pony tail had come loose, and his long, blonde hair was cascading from his head like the mane of a sweaty lion. His clothes were in tatters, and tentacles and tendrils were crawling all over his chubby, sweaty form, his surprisingly alluring alabaster flesh. All over, and inside. A tentacle as thick as an arm had entered him from behind, an only marginally smaller one from the mouth, giving him the overall appearance of a glorious, living spit roast. Even over the infernal noise, his muffled moaning indicated overwhelming pleasure. His balls and absolutely erect penis were bobbing merrily up and down.

Real Meat From Real People.

Not far from him, two other tentacles had been able to secure their prey, the young professor who had been flirting with Brusche earlier, and a girl from catering. The two women were fighting like furies, kicking and punching and shrieking and hurling insults, but the tentacles were already tearing at their clothes...

Real Meat From Real People.

Real People.

Real...

That finally pierced through the veil of Magille's madness.

"OVER HERE!"

She rose to her feet, and with both hands, she ripped her delicate - and painfully expensive - evening gown apart. Braless as her outfit had been, her breast flopped out and spread apart, in a cloud of sweat drops.

"YOU LIKE THIS? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? COME AND GET IT, BIG GUY!"

The monstrosity twitched, and then carelessly dropped the other two women. Within seconds, the tentacles were on Magille, and dragged her towards the eye of the fleshy storm.

The tentacles were so hot, and smooth, and FIRM. They were slippery, whether it was human-like sweat or slime was hard to tell. Pure muscle, through and through. They seemingly fused and branched at will.

A more delicate tentacle darted under her tits, and lifted them up, as if to gauge their mass. Two more were squeezing and spreading her ass - her G-string snapped.

Yet another pair, this one ending in graspers approximating human hands, grabbed her legs, and pulled them apart, while even more, tiny tendrils crawled over her wobbly thighs, towards her cunt. No use telling herself that it was just the sweat - Magille was squelching wet.

The tendrils dug through her pubes, and found her clitoris. They grabbed it, and spiraled around it.

Magille realized that she was moaning. Full-throat.

That, indeed, attracted the monster's attention to her throat. An inquisitive appendage snaked towards her lips. As soon as the tip was near Magille's teeth, she bit into it, rather than letting it fuck her throat. The meat was still delicious, by the way. Possibly more than ever. The creature didn't retract from her attack, but instead shivered in what she could only interpret as masochistic delight.

The creature spawned another couple of graspers, and grabbed and squeezed her tits. Two suction cups caught her nipples, as if trying to milk her. The relentless massage of her clit sent wave after wave of pleasure through her body.

"Put it IN me!" Magille gasped. "Put it INSIDE me, you fucking piece of shit! Fuck me! FUCK ME NOW!"

As if the monster understood what she had said, a thick tentacle approached between her legs, shapeshifted an unsurprisingly phallic looking tip, and slowly, but surely pushed into her cunt.

"HOLY shiiiiit...!"

It, uhm. It was a pretty good dick. Good thing both she and the tentacle were REAL wet.

Down below, she noticed that another large tentacle was closing in on one of the fleeing guests.

Thinking quickly, she squirmed around until she managed to rotate herself into a horizontal position and hold her rear end up high. "My ASS!" she wheezed between two thrusts. "I want that in my BIG FAT ass...! You know you want it!"

Ever obliging, the free tentacle abandoned its pursuit of new prey and instead darted towards her spread butt crack, and slipped into her beckoning anus. The two tentacles were filling her up, squeezing the wall between her vagina and rectum between them.

And they pushed, and pushed. Every thrust resonated through her whole body. Tentacles wrapped around her torso, pulled her limbs, and the pounding went on and on. Her glasses, which had valiantly stuck to her face so far, were finally catapulted away.

"Magille...!"

The desperate cry seemed to emerge from another reality. Below, Magille saw Brusche climbing up through the forest of slippery, flailing tentacles, fighting them off to the best of his abilities. His shirt was in shambles, exposing his heaving chest. He reached out for her, his fingers brushed against her dangling tits, then he managed to get a hold of her waist, only for another tentacle to roll up into an improvised fist. It punched him in the face, and he flew away.

"Brusche...!"

"I'm coming! HOLD ON, Magille...! Also, Pete, I guess."

Pete gave him a little wave.

"Brusche," Magille moaned once more, conflicting feelings rushing through what was left of her mind.

A tentacle around her torso squeezed her tighter, and turned her onto her back again. With awe, she observed how the tentacle that was fucking her in the cunt was branching out. It grew a blob that inflated like a balloon animal. Its shape became more and more defined, sprouted pectoral muscles, nipples, a flat belly, two thick, strong arms. Very familiar arms. Oh yes.

The arms reached out for her, and held her tight. Pressed her against the firm, muscular, headless torso, while the tentacles were relentlessly pounding her from below.

"Oh, Brusche..." Magille cried out.

"Magille, THAT'S NOT ME!" Brusche Fenlength yelled from somewhere. "Magille! You gotta snap out of it!"

"Oh, Butt-Monster Brusche..."

"That's better! And worse!"

Over the muscular shoulders of the Brusche-dummy, Magille stared into the room, desperately trying to make sense of the chaos. Her head was so fuzzy, inside.

All over the auditorium, people were trying to flee, or fighting back against the flesh... or ripping their clothes off and diving into the orgy.

It was like a fever dream.

Ms. Takenawa stepped forward, completely unperturbed. Dozens of tentacles were circling her. Finally, one of them dared to approach, rose up like a giant cobra. Yuko Takenawa reached out with one hand, and gently let her fingers wander over the tip of the tentacle. Understandably, it quivered under her touch. She sauntered closer, stepped over the tentacle like hopping over a tree root, her fingers still gently caressing its tip. Another shift of the mass of tentacles moved the scene out of Magille's sight, but not before she saw Ms. Takenawa kissing the tentacle, leaving a speck of red lipstick on it.

The headless torso whirled Magille around, and now she was positioned belly-down once more, her arms and legs dangling, as the tentacles pounded her from behind. Her bum slammed rhythmically against the slim pelvis of the Brusche-thing.

The torso squeezed her against its taunt belly, sank into the rolls of her back, and with one more thrust, Magille came. It was glorious, set her whole body ablaze.

The contractions of her orgasm rippled into the flesh of the beast, joined with the ripples of dozens of other, simultaneous orgasms, merged at the centre of the monstrum, and rippled back out again. Magille's ears were ringing with a cacophony of cries of pleasure.

A man's shoe flew past Magille's contorting face. A dinner plate. A chunky piece of equipment. Then she was hit on the head with a cellphone.

"What the FUCK? Who the hell..."

"Sorry, Doc!" Bruce cried from below. "I'm throwing things, now!"

By now, most people had escaped the auditorium... But the monster had managed to corner a tiny group of hapless stragglers. Brusche, now naked from the waist up, overflowing with manly sweat, had heroically placed himself between his wards and certain penetration.

Magille quickly counted the remaining tentacles. "We have to wear it down!

"Nuh-uh!"

"It's the ONLY WAY, Brusche...!"

"Absolutely NOT!"

"Brusche, you have to!"

"YES, Brusche!" Pete cried out from somewhere behind her. "JOIN US! Do it, MAN! FUCK IT! Embrace the MEAT! It's the only way! Take it up your ASS!"

"Yes, Brusche!" Someone else in the cluster moaned. "I have NO idea who you are, but definitely, join us!"

"One of us! One of us!"

"What happens in The Meat, stays in The Meat!"

"Peer pressure! Peer pressure!"

"Brusche! Brusche! Brusche! Brusche!"

"Feel the MEAT!"

"Plus, for you, it's like masturbation, if you think about it! Or is it incest...?"

"Pete, NO! BAD!"

"Oh, damn it all to hell!" Brusche snarled. "I am COMING, Magille! Hold on!"

Brusche leapt straight into the embrace of the Real Meat, and Magille thought he looked like a flying angel. The tentacles tore away his pants and his shoes, though sadly left his socks on.

With a bombastic SLOSH, one tentacle penetrated his ass, another one deep throated him, two tiny ones were circling over his nipples, and the last one wrapped around his dick. His beautiful, reasonably-sized dick.

All of the different thrusts were synchronizing. The whole mass of flesh convulsed with each cycle.

"Brusche...!" She wheezed.

Their eyes met, and he spat out the tentacle that was face-fucking him.

"MAGILLE...!"

They reached out for one another, swam through the sea of hot flesh, and embraced.

At this point, it was impossible to tell what was touching what.

They both looked up, and all the way at the centre and the apex of the mount of flesh, they saw Dr. Pete Colung and Ms. Yuko Takenawa, gloriously naked, sail towards each other, each with their rear ends impaled on a tentacle. In perfect symmetry, they opened their mouths, their lips met, the first ripples of the ultimate climax was upon them all...

... And then the meat abruptly deflated with an obnoxious flatulent sound.

The powerful muscles became flaccid, and cold. It collapsed like a cheap bouncy castle.

"That's QUITE enough of that, thank you...!"

Dr. Magille stared out into the devastated auditorium, and saw Tiff, heaving, shaking, her dress torn but still providing some cover. She was wielding a huge, obscene looking nozzle at the end of a long hose. The nozzle was still embedded in a prominent orifice of the flesh beast.

"You're WELCOME, boss."

Flapp, flapp, flapp.

The doors to the auditorium burst open, and inside darted the hairy meat blob that had originally spawned in the accursed Vat 9. It rolled and flopped and jumped, its bristly fur still glittering with ice crystals from the freezer, and then plunged right into the fleshy mass of the larger mutant.

The flesh convulsed once more, and then it grew a thick coat of black asshair all over.

Look at me now, mother...

Not far from Tiffany, the fur parted, and an unknown face appeared. A guy with buckteeth.

"Don't!" Tiffany protested, narrowing her eyes. "Don't you DARE say it, dude!"

"I knew I shoulda taken a left turn at Albuquerque," the face grumbled.

"... Aaaand he said it."

The face retracted back into the fur, never to be seen again.

With a shiver, all the hair fell out. The dead remains of the monster shriveled up exponentially, slipped out of all orifices, lay flat against the ground, lifeless. Dead meat.

Magille and Brusche stared at one another. Blinked. Once. Twice.

Then they threw themselves at each other, kissed - with tongue, very much with tongue - and Magille took Brusche inside of her with a triumphant squelch. He was still, gloriously, rock hard.

"You guys, how can you still..." Tiffany began. "Uhhh... Whatever. Everyone else? Please help me clean up. Pete!"

"Actually," Pete timidly suggested. "I was hoping... Ms. Takenawa...?"

The business lady had already gathered up her clothes, and smirked at his kneeling form. "The moment's passed, kid. Be good, now."

She walked over to Magille and Brusche, and politely waited until they both had come with a simultaneous guttural grunt, which only took about 20 more seconds.

"Ms. Takenawa," Magille gasped, digging her fingernails into Brusche, who was also still inside of her. "I..."

"This was... Certainly unexpected," Yuko Takenawa said. "Needless to say, you might still want to calibrate this, some more. Some... Kinks, to work out."

"I am SO sorry..."

"Don't be, Dr. Herzbluth. The one thing I hate more than anything is that nothing surprises me anymore, in this world. You surprised me today. I have decided to invest in your project."

She patted Magille's incredulous head as she walked by and sauntered out the door, still butt naked except for the bundle of designer clothes she had pressed against her chest.

"Fair warning, though. I might want to take this in a... Slightly different direction."

And just like that, she was gone.

Brusche slipped out of Magille and helped her onto her feet. Her knees were all shaky.

Suddenly, there was a sharp impact, and Magille found herself in the middle of a mostly naked cuddle pile. The whole gang, back together. Plus Professor Spuhl, who Tiffany swiftly pushed away.

"You scared the SHIT out of me, girl," Tiffany cried.

"That has to be the dumbest thing that ever happened to anyone, anywhere," Brusche sighed.

"I liked the part with the tentacle sex," Pete sang.

"Let's go eat a SALAD," Magille sobbed, tears streaming down her face like waterfalls. "My treat...!"

~7~

Dr. Magille Herzbluth had been worried that The Incident had nuked their professional reputation for good, but colleagues from the other labs on campus offered some reassurance. They insisted that even with a disaster of that magnitude, the reputation of her and her team couldn't have possibly sunk any lower than it already was before. The general estimate of how many braincells they shared, between the four of them, hadn't budged one bit. They still weren't invited to the campus Halloween party.

Blissfully, Ms. Takenawa had agreed to pay for the cleanup, and the legal fees. Peanuts for her, really.

They never did find out how the hairy meat had escaped from the freezer. Most of their days, these days, were spent on testing the equipment again, and dissecting the plentiful tissue samples from the monstrum.

Magille looked up from her microscope, and sighed.

Brusche patted her on the shoulder. "Hot coco, boss?"

"Yes, please..."

Her team had persuaded her to buy a couch, for the lab. They got quite a bit of material for emotional blackmail, now. Still, the couch had been one of their better ideas, she had to admit. Brusche pulled her along, and they plopped themselves into the soft cushions. He let out a little groan - his butt was healing up nicely, but there was still some way to go. He put an arm around her, and she put her tired head on his broad chest.

"Brusche," she mumbled. "Are we MAD scientists?"

"I know I am," Brusche scoffed.

"You'll never let me live this down, will you?"

"Hehe. Nope."

Pete sat down next to them with a groan. "So, I was wondering..."

"Yes, Pete, you can be the next meat sample, if you want to," Magille snorted.

"Yay!"

She shook her head. "Not that I feel like I am ready to give it another try, just yet."

"Speak for yourself!" Tiffany sang. "I thought it was unfair YOU guys got to have all the fun, and I was just running around, doing math and mixing some deus-ex-bullshit together, to save your asses literally. So last night, I decided to be a NAUGHTY girl, and used one of the scraps to make me a Brusche-Butt-Monster protein shake. I grew an extra ovary!" She rolled up her shirt, and patted her lower belly.

"That's nice, Tiff," Magille said and took a sip from her coco.

"Also, now my clit can do this!"

Tiffany gleefully unzipped her pants, and out shot something like a chameleon tongue. It latched on to Brusche's wallet, conveniently sticking out of his pocket, and reeled it in.

"That was my clitoris!"

"Yes, Tiff, we figured, from context."

Magille shuddered, but then she straightened her back, and beamed at her team.

"You know what," She solemnly declared. "You people? You're the REAL meat."

Magille was rewarded with a satisfying chorus of groans and lamentations.

"Hehe. Love ya."

~Recommended Soundtrack~

Oingo Boingo - 'Weird Science'