AdWalls lined the cafeteria, as my classmates waited impatiently to graze on their uniform grey mush, at 12:03 in the afternoon, as they did each day awaiting daily prayer. And as per usual I found myself late, due to my daily afternoon cry in the second from the last bathroom stall, scheduled for four minutes on the nose. The AdWalls were all the more invasive the later you were to lunch. I heard one of my classmates, Amber Glass was entirely consumed by them, and that’s why she never returned to school. That or she moved someplace along the eastern seaboard like the teachers would tell us. But who even listens to them?

No matter, she was five minutes late, whereas I was four minutes late. I waded through various chin primer and premarital menstruation prevention ads out of the way and found myself at the kiosk. I held out my hand to be scanned by the industrious-looking robot wearing a blonde wig, saddled with a hairnet. As the scanner dinged, my palm began to burn slightly, out of her vendetta against my chronic tardiness. The ClotBurger brand Lunch-o-Magic’s mechanical eyes lit up and granted me access to the conveyor belt. I watched as a torso-less Lunch-o-Magic lunch lady squeezed out a grey ooze that coiled neatly on the plate. Her lifeless mechanical voice droned: Isobel Moone, social class: Elite Platinum, today’s flavor blasted meal is steak tartare. Nutrition requirements were satisfied by Generic Public School #8’s Lunch-o-Magic serial number #0032134564343324. Please leave a satisfaction rating at the end of your lunch break. Have a nice day, Isobel Moone. I sighed in relief as the AdWalls began to calm themselves, and I picked out a familiar face in the crowd.

“What’s up, meat wad?” My old friend, David Kaslov looked back at me awkwardly, stirring in his chair.

“Hi, Isa,” He stammered and squirmed.

“The hell is your problem, meat boy?”

“C-can you stop it? I don’t like that name.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Meatman, it is then.” He groaned, as our headmaster approached the podium. My classmate's eyes widened, as their wait to stuff their faces with a meat-like object was near an end.

“Good afternoon children, this is headmaster Walton.” He always began as if we weren’t aware of who he was. His fat rolls jostled as he spoke fervently about the word of our Overlord. “Today we have been blessed with a new flavor in our school district. Steak Tartare!” I don’t think anyone knew what steak tartare was, and neither did I. But the cafeteria burst with applause. “Now let us pray to give thanks to the overlord.” Each one of us stood to salute to the enhanced photo of the Overlord, with our school’s famous oversized flag behind him. It billowed like freshly hanging laundry only seen in advertisements, only it was red, and symbolized the rightly divided continent we shared.

“Bo-ring,” I whispered, yawned into my sleeve. Kaslov shot me a warning glance, and I shot one right back, to which he cowered in his seat.

“Heavenly Overlord, we thank you for providing Generic School #8 with an old-world delicacy. We thank you for this bountiful country we call Pacifica, and we thank you for banishing the degenerates into the burning hell pit we call the Delta. We thank you for keeping us safe from all crime, your arms are our beacons of safety. In his name, we praise him.” He cleared his throat, it was often that he got emotional, but today tears rolled down his chin. “Praise him!” His eyes practically rolled into his skull, as he dropped to his knees, and the rest of the cafeteria joined him. Kas and I, however, kept saluting until the madness ended. “Enjoy your last day of preparatory school, eleventh years. Soon you will become our next men in uniform, and mothers to our future men in uniform. Praise the Overlord!”

“Praise him!” We all cheered, and then the masses began consuming their flavor-blasted nutrient paste.

“Uh, Kas?” I prodded my colorless gel with my spork. “What exactly is Steak tartare?”

“No idea,” He said through mouthfuls of gooey grey viscera. I tasted it ever so slightly, and my face bunched up inside itself.

“I think I’ll skip lunch today.” I moved my tray to the center of the table and motioned Kas toward it. “Here, a double lunch.”

Kas looked at me dumbfounded. “You’re joking. That food was made with your unique nutritional requirements in mind.”

“Well we’re both elite members of society, I’m sure they’re similar enough.” I pawned off the tray to my friend and rested my head on my hand. There was a feeling deep down that pressed against my ribcage. I was numb to it, but sometimes I wanted to claw at it, just like biting at the inside of my cheeks after a trip to the dentist.

“Are you okay, Isa? You look like you need to see a nurse.” He restlessly uncrossed his legs and took another bite of the hot grey goop.

“No, I think I might be getting sick, or something.” I sat back in my seat, watching the projections of a forest that played on the window. They were photorealistic digital paintings, I was told they existed once in places other than the Great Divide, an inhospitable rainforest that rests comfortably above the mountain chain that divides Pacifica to the north, and the Delta to the south. No one came out of the Rainforest we called The Apuch Forest.