The sedan sputtered northward down the rain-soaked freeway, its waterlogged tires audibly struggling but still somehow turning, each one a little engine that could.
“I don’t care what they call it, it’s not fucking chili.” The driver said, slamming his palms on the wheel, his thumbs an eighth of an inch away from the horn.
“It’s ground beef and seasoning boiled in a pot of sauce; what would you like to call it? A hamburger?” The passenger’s mouth turned up in the hint of a smirk.
“Ok fine, that’s chili. But it stops being chili the second they put it on pasta! I’m not even Italian and I’m ready to riot over that bullshit.”
“And I’m ready to riot over the sorry state of your car, but here I am, having left my torch and pitchfork back at home, thousands of miles from here.”
“That’s just because you didn’t know what to pack Randall, and you know it.” The driver took one hand off the wheel to point his finger at his passenger.
“Whatever you say Dan. I get that the food here is pretty weird, but the weirdness is the whole point of this trip. Did you really think Head Chef Nellie would send her journeyman chefs on a little weekend trip to the Inland Empire as their last test?”
“I was hoping so, to avoid this weather if anything else.” He gestured to the downpour outside.
“Oh come on, this is much more scenic than a couple hundred miles of desert.”
“Says the person who’s not driving.” Dan raised his eyebrow.
“Fair enough.” Randall conceded, looking out the window for a bit as the car stumbled towards the old Kentucky-Ohio border, still a county line in the Bluegrass Republic.
“Happy to be out of there. Cincy chili is fucking weird, but I guess it’s way more normal than what we saw in Louisville. Those guys still eat fucking sorghum syrup like they’re ancient Egyptians. I was surprised the highway signs weren’t in hieroglyphs.”
“Yeah, something tells me that won’t make the final recipe. Maybe that Henry Bain sauce will be useful for something though; Lord knows there are enough ingredients.” Randall laughed.
“I guess so. Not sure what we’ll get from the “chili” here, but I guess we’ll find out.” Dan said, the car swerving for just half a second when he took his hand off the wheel making air quotes. He apologized under his breath within a millisecond of seeing the dirty look Randall gave him.
After some time exchanging ideas for their masterpiece on their return home, Randall and Dan finally arrived at their destination, a restaurant with white walls trimmed with royal blue, and a pitched roof with a matching color scheme.
“You didn’t tell me they invented a time machine to go with the chili.” Dan laughed as they entered the establishment, the line taking up around 80% of the stainless steel cafeteria counter behind which half a dozen employees—automated and otherwise—took and prepared orders. Even the humans scooped and spread toppings with all the joy and enthusiasm of an automaton.
“How many ways you want? Two-three-four-five?” One of the employees asked, his hands in even more of a rush than his mouth as he worked on a couple orders.
“Five-way? Depends on the composition.” Dan laughed as Randall rolled his eyes. “Give both of us everything you’ve got.” He said, an order which was immediately picked up by one of the cook drones’ auditory sensors, as it strained some spaghetti out of some already boiling (and hopefully salted) water, placing it in a half-spherical mound on a ceramic plate, which slid down the line.
The plate stopped by the second drone’s station, which scooped exactly six ounces of chili—at least what the rest of the continent called chili—onto the spaghetti.
The next station on the line was manned by some teenager, her ponytail nearly the same shade of red as her work uniform, as she first weighed out, then sprinkled exactly one ounce of onions and two ounces of kidney beans over the meat sauce.
The final station was the cheese, and this one involved no measurement whatsoever. This was manned by a mountain of an employee, whose job it was to put “two handfuls” of shredded cheddar on the plates. The fabric of his gloves strained but held up as he placed a heap of cheese on both plates.
“Looks like cheese prices are low here.” Randall said as they picked one of a couple dozen available formica tables; this one was painted ruby red, one of three available options along with and baby blue and mint green.
“And I thought we had to go to the RBR for a garbage plate.” Dan laughed before taking the biggest forkful he possibly could, almost having to unhinge his jaw to fit it in, while Randall tried to separate the individual elements, tasting one at a time.
Both had a few bites in silence, eyes focused on their plates. After each of their third bite, they looked up.
“Well, what did we take from our stop here? Need something to tell the boss.” Randall said.
“That sometimes, things are just wrong.” They both said, laughing. They left their nearly full plates with a 30% tip; the servers deserved every bit of it for having to serve that all day.