“Caleb Stone, Modern Soil. We met at MU years ago—back when you were dating Kaori Tanaka. I was an aggie undergrad finishing a journalism master’s.”
“I’m sorry—I don’t remember you. If you knew we dated, we probably did meet. But for both personal and professional reasons, I’d appreciate it if you left her name out of your reporting.”
“Of course. She and I are still friends. She’s actually the one who reminded me—sent me that old video of you doing Bardcore Rap on a recorder.”
“Boy, that takes me back,” Matt said, chuckling. “I wonder how the internet would react to that now.”
“So—the Freehold feeds itself and exports surplus. How do you balance post-collapse food security with the demands of luxury, culture, and memory in your kitchens?”
“Look around. We eat luxury almost every day—at least by corporate-collapse standards. A real porterhouse in Boston runs you two hundred FiatDollars ($FD) per pound. Here? Around twenty-five NewDollars ($ND) per kilo. Depending on exchange rates, that’s an 85% difference—mostly driven by transportation costs.
Still not cheap, not for families with five kids. But it’s within reach. We made local abundance the baseline. What’s unaffordable out there is just Tuesday here.”
He waved down a server. “Try one of each of these.”
Caleb bit in. “That’s… shockingly good. Not something I tasted as a student.”
“Every bit of that except the pepper and sugar is local,” Matt said.
“So the pepper was the expensive part?”
“That—and the fact it’s zebra pastrami. Saw it in Vancouver last year going for three hundred FiatDollars ($FD) a pound. Here? We stick it in school lunches.”
