'Original Mike's Coffee Shop' by Patrick Hudson
At night, when passing trade eases off, Original Mike takes the coffee machine to pieces and cleans it out. Every component is vital to the perfect espresso and so he gives each his full attention. He empties the trays and bins, wipes the splashes and scuffs from the fascia, scrubs the greasy residue from the porta filter, scrapes the milk fat from the steamer nozzle and if it looks like it needs it he'll descale the pump. Once he's cleaned the machine he'll give the rough tables a wipe down, refill the vintage sugar dispensers and make a quick stock take of the drinks in the chiller cabinet. Finally, before closing, he'll walk around, checking the light levels, testing the mismatched retro furniture – making a quick repair, if necessary – and tidying up the papers and magazines. The routine is physical thing for Original Mike, internalised like a dance or playing a musical instrument. The repetitive actions soothe him and it helps him sleep if he knows that things are ready for the morning.
However, on this particular evening, he is just getting ready to put the machine back together when the door rattles open. Without looking up, he says “There's only brew, I'm afraid, I'm just cleaning the machine.”
“Always clean it just before closing, right?”
It's a man's voice, familiar, not one of his regulars but someone he knows, nonetheless. The belligerent tone puts him off a little – everyone likes Original Mike!
He looks up from behind the open innards of the machine and it takes him a moment to place the face – it is his own. He doesn't know quite what to say at first. Of course he's aware that there's another branch of Original Mike's Coffee Shop across town, and he knows that there's an Original Mike behind the counter, but in all the times he's gone out to the cash and carry or to sample the competition elsewhere in the neighbourhood, it's never even crossed his mind to visit another Original Mike's. It's not against the rules – hell, there aren't any rules – it's just that he's never done it.
At the end of the day, he reasons, this is just another customer, and his background and nature are focused on service, even in difficult and unexpected circumstances. “Are you okay with brew? I'll bring it over.” He gets the pot from the hot plate and fills a mug. “Milk and two?”
“Black.”
Black? He never takes it black! As he pours the coffee he steals a look at the other Mike, who has settled himself into the scuffed green leather porter's chair in the far corner, Original Mike's favourite spot. As well as bone structure and musculature and skin tone and subcutaneous fat levels, a face is the person behind it. The bones and musculature and etc of this man are all familiar, but there is something different about the eyes and the set of the mouth. His gaze darts about, searching the dim corners of the coffee shop and he is hunched and defensive, as if ready to fend off an attack. What really gets to him, though, are the clothes. Original Mike prides himself on his dress sense – he has the long legs, broad shoulders and slim hips of a male model, and a complexion that brings out the best in the earth-toned chinos, rugby shirts and chunky knit sweaters that he favours. This guy's wearing a wrinkled raincoat over ragged cargo pants and a t-shirt. He's cropped his wavy brown hair down to stubble, and he looks like he hasn’t shaved for at least three days. While Original Mike tries to fathom what kind of look he's going for, the other Mike spots him and fixes him with an angry eye.
“How're you doing?” says Original Mike.
The other Mike smiles with an emotion that Original Mike doesn't recognise. “I wonder that myself sometimes.”
Original Mike looks away as he puts down the coffee pot and walks over. When he places the mug in front of the other Mike, he catches a scent of liquor. This brings him up short: he doesn't drink! He was brought up that way by his surrogate parents on the Original Mike's Campus, and besides if he has more than a couple of beers he gets nauseous.
“Can I get you something to eat? I could do you a sandwich.”
The other Mike nods. “Upselling.”
“Pardon me?”
“Upselling. Selling me food to increase the value of the transaction. You don't even realise you're doing it – it's a gene they call Hustle No 3, it codes for a structure in the amygdala that alerts you to opportunities to make a little extra money.”
Original Mike spreads his hands, a disarming half surrender and half apology. “I'll leave you to your coffee.”
“No, sit down.”
Original Mike hesitates. He isn't equipped to handle this: on those occasions when clients appear in distress he has a certain native caution that'll see him through, but this situation demands something else from him, something he's not sure he's got. He shakes his head. “I've got things to do.”
“You like the machine, right?” Original Mike shrugs. “It's the rs7899 polymorphism of the SLC25A12 gene. They call that one Espresso Bongo. Original Mike's Corporation owns it. Who would have thought there was genetic code for making coffee?” The other Mike smiles disarmingly, an expression that Original Mike recognises immediately and shockingly. “Come on. The machine'll wait.”
“I'll call Hilda.” Hilda deals with the accounts and sorts things out when deliveries go astray or something else comes up that's outside his remit. This is definitely outside his remit.
The other Mike reaches over and grabs his arm. “I don't wanna talk to Hilda. Grab a coffee. Sit down.”
He could snatch his arm back, go back to his coffee machine and ignore this guy, but he has a feeling that this other Mike's not going to be so easily ignored. And maybe, despite everything, he's a little bit curious and a little bit lonely and can't resist the hint of appeal behind those familiar eyes.
“Hold on.” It's a bit late for coffee for him; he only ever gets a few hours sleep anyway and he doesn't need to have that disturbed by the caffeine. Instead, he grabs the familiar flask of protein drink that is delivered fresh every day by the Original Mike Corporation, and that he drinks each night before bed.
“Ah, the old Update Shake! Delicious!”
“Sure is,” says Original Mike, relaxing: here's something they can agree on.
“You know why it’s so delicious?”
“I love chocolate banana.”
“Indeed you do. The flavour exactly matches the layout of your taste buds and the sensory receptors in your cerebellum. You're physically predisposed to love it because they want to make sure you drink it every night.”
“Well, it's good for me, isn't it.”
“Why do you think it's called the Update Shake?”
“It's just a brand name.”
“They created every single element of your genome. They understand it so completely that they can create viruses to effect any change they like in you, from tiny hacks to complex behaviours. Remember when you got interested in word games?”
“Word-a-Lingo?”
“Yeah. That was a all due to a modification to the genes involved verbal cognition paid-for by the game company. So, for a little while all you wanted to do was play that stupid game, and then when the promotion wound up you lost interest and switched to Chocolate Noggins, right?”
Original Mike is about to speak, but then he shrugs. So what? He knows about the Update Shake, he knows there are things that need taking care of from time to time. The virus-laden shake isn't the shocking surprise to him that this character seems to want it to be. He’s about to get up. “Look -”
“My place was just like this, you know.”
“Well, sure. That's the unique Original Mike formula our customers -” He's almost relieved by this turn in the conversation, something they have in common, until it strikes him what is being said. “Wait a minute, was?”
“I quit.”
“You quit?”
“Sure, why not?”
“It's not – I own – you own your shop. It's your business.”
“Well, I've shut it down.”
“You can't shut it down!” This time he’s shocked. This is his place, this is where he belongs, the place he has made for himself, but also the place he was made to create. It's more than just a coffee shop, it's an extension of his phenotype, the end result of a process that begins with the formation of proteins by his RNA and ends with him applying a layer of smoky varnish to the walls to achieve the precise, intimate atmosphere that his customers love so much.
“I can if I like, I'm not a slave.”
“But what about your surrogates? Won't they -”
“Won't they what? Why should I care about them? It's just a particular formation of the 5-HTT gene that regulates serotonin uptake. They set it to kick out during early family bonding. That's how they control you, man, they make you love these strangers.”
“For God's sake, they're your parents!”
“We don't have parents. Have you ever thought this through?” the other Mike takes in the coffee shop with a gesture. “Who is Original Mike? Did you ever think about that?”
Original Mike is under no illusions about who he is and where he comes from. They all go through a strange period during their accelerated adolescence where they wonder and question and rebel, but sustained rebellion isn't part of the profile. He quickly resolved the issues and got down to the serious business of coffee. “Sure I have.”
“No you haven't!” The other Mike reaches over and puts his arm around Original Mike's shoulder, grabbing him around the neck, pulling his face close. Original Mike gets a waft of stale liquor straight in the face. “You’ve never thought about who you are, you’re barely capable of thinking about it. Alleles on your fifteenth chromosome mould your hippocampus in a way that drives you to find comfort in the familiar.”
Original Mike pulls himself away. The other Mike's grasp is clammy, and there's a film of sweat on his forehead. “What's the matter with you? Are you sick?”
“No, I'm not sick, I'm free. And you can be free, too.” He smiles and licks his lips.
“We should call Hilda.”
“Forget Hilda. Forget your surrogates.”
The novelty's worn off now, and he's ready to call Hilda, but there's an achey stiffness spreading around the back of his neck and a sickly sting creeping across his body from his spine. In the back of his mind doubts are stirring. He shakes his head. “I'm sorry. I'm happy here, really I am.”
The other Mike throws his hands in the air. “What's happy? High serotonin levels and a full stomach? Stuck in the same routine, day after day, not even wondering why? Happiness is nothing when you can't be free!”
Original Mike can feel his face flushing and his stomach tightening. He’s not used to getting anxious and defensive, and he doesn’t like it much. Really, he just wishes this guy would go, but he finds himself saying, “So, you just woke up one morning and decided you'd had enough?”
“I had a conversation, like this one. Three days ago, one of the other Mike’s came to my place, just as I was closing up. I know what you’re thinking about me. That’s what I thought, too, until I sat down and really thought about what he had to say. He got it from from some other Mike. No one knows where or when it started, somewhere up north. It’s spreading, though, through word of mouth. Original Mike’s Coffee Shops are shutting down all over the place.”
“How many of us have you seen?”
“Five or six.”
“How many turned it down?”
“Turned it down? No one turned it down. And that's just me. We're growing exponentially, covering the nation. Before long there won't be a single one of these places left open.”
Original Mike feels sick to think of what he could lose. “What gives you the right to walk in here and declare me sub-human? Just because you disapprove of the way I live, just because I don't measure up to your standard of sapience. I don't need you to decide if I'm happy or not!”
“That’s the whole point!” The other Mike slaps the table, frustrated. “Decide for yourself! Make a choice, a real choice! Think what it means to be free.”
“Free to do what?”
“What ever you want!”
“This is what I want!”
“Oh yeah, you've got everything you want, and you want everything you've got! That’s not freedom, you're a second class citizen! ”
“But are they any different? What do they have that we don't? Are they any less ruled by their genes, just because theirs are random? They go through their whole lives searching for their place, doubting, worrying, permanently confused. Most of them never find it. But us? We've got what we want!”
“Only because you're made to think that way!”
Original Mike, weary, and nauseous now, groans incredulously, “Oh come on.”
“You know I’m right. When you come around you'll walk right out of here and start spreading the word, just like the others.”
Original Mike turns away. His head is thick with new ideas, old thoughts disappearing, new ones swimming in and out of range. He feels dizzy and thirsty, but his mouth is filled with saliva. With a heave, he vomits. Up comes the Update Shake and the stink of chocolate banana mixed with bile makes him shudder and retch again.
“Come on, Mike.”
“Get out of here.”
“It's never easy.”
“Leave me alone.”
He doesn't look up, but hears the chair scrape back. “Okay. It was the same with me. Good luck, Mike.”
Behind him, the door rattles open and shut, but he doesn't move, head hanging above the pool of reeking spew. He knows he should clean it up, it’ll just get worse the longer he leaves it, but he sits there, hanging his head for several minutes. Anger slowly overcomes the receding nausea. He stands and catches his reflection in the night-blackened window, a fresh resolve forming. Screw coffee, he has a new mission. The first thing he’ll do, though, is cut his hair and get some proper clothes.
