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You've seen a lot of shit. You haven't seen this. But you're not easily rattled, on the whole, and you're trying to get on Pat's good side here, and these things prevent you from reacting stronger than you do. "Shit," you say. "How'd that happen?"
"Self-experimentation's a risky business. Stuff just didn't take properly up here." She pats her cheek. "It's no big deal, really, it just tends to distract people. Nosiness sated?"
"...Yeah."
"Alright. Hey, the tea's getting cold."
It really isn't, but she's right that you haven't been drinking it. You don't know if you'll like it, is the problem, which now that you're saying it sounds real fucking wimpy. But it's been a <span class="mu-i">long time.</span> And you're not the same person. And you are probably investing goddamn leaf water with way more ominous portent than it deserves, aren't you? What's the matter with you? You drink the tea.
Or you "drink" the tea. You try your damndest to, really, but none of it is going down your throat— do you have a throat? If you didn't have one, it'd make a lot of sense, because you're just absorbing the tea. That's what's happening. There is tea in your mouth, and there is tea in your cheeks and your lips and your sinuses, and in your neck and your skull, and it is spreading down to your collarbone, and you're sure that if you drank a sufficient quantity of tea you'd be made of it flat-out. Which you wouldn't mind, because wherever the tea goes it carries with it a heady, syrupy warmth. Your eyes are wide. Your cheeks are flushed. You are trying to determine if you are, in fact, tasting with your entire body.
>[GRIT: High]
"Yeah?" Pat, having reattached the mask, sets down her own mug. "Wouldn't recommend it with <span class="mu-i">iced</span> drinks, necessarily, but..."
"Mm," you say. It's hard to concentrate. "Yeah, I— yeah. Huh. Shit. Um... do you eat <span class="mu-i">everything</span> like this? Because that— I dunno how you'd—"
"I don't eat much," Pat says. "But more-or-less, yes. You can do solids, but they tend to <span class="mu-i">sit</span> there for a—"
"Okay, okay." You'll be back in real life soon. It's fine. "Is that why Lester Food's a powder? So it can be mixed with water, or whatever?"
"Lester Food?" Pat sits back on the sofa. "Where the hell did you—"
"Lester Six showed me, for... some reason. I guess there was none left in the—"
"There was some <span class="mu-i">left.</span> I could've sworn—" Pat squints down into the hallway. "I'll have a talking to with him. He's just supposed to <span class="mu-i">watch</span> you, not drag you into... but yes, it's meant to be mixed with water. Or whichever fluid."
"And... what's in it?"
Is it your imagination, or did she look shifty right there? She definitely glanced away, but you're also definitely biased against her. Hmm. "Organic materials," she says breezily. "Nutrients, vitamins... doesn't <span class="mu-i">taste</span> good, but it keeps them functional. Believe me, they don't need more than 'functional.'"
"Gotcha." So it's dog food for goo men. "So—"
(2/3?)
