Chapter 38 - Chapter Thirty Eight

The corpos had meetings stacked for weeks once the numbers came in because for the first time in years the profits on packaged meals, synthetic meat, nutrient paste, and vending contracts were not just flatlining but actively dropping, market reports showing clear patterns as street vendors sold out of fresh meat and vegetables faster than shipments could arrive, families buying pots and pans again, small kitchens installed in apartments that hadn't needed them in decades, and people laughing at ad screens pushing meal packs because the taste no longer compared to what they could get from the corner stand, and rather than double down on a losing war the boardrooms chose the strategy they always chose when survival was on the line—adapt, absorb, twist the change until they owned it, because control was more profitable than denial; Biotechnica announced a "fresh foods division" within the month, contracts with growers who had suddenly appeared in the green lands outside Night City, offering to brand their crops under a Corpo label with guarantees of safety and quality, and Militech quietly funded pop-up kitchens that promised "real meat burgers, responsibly sourced" in the same neighborhoods where their patrols kept order, and Arasaka ran ad campaigns about how their corporate vision had always been "to return life to the people of the city" while selling pre-packaged salad boxes grown in hydro towers branded with glowing logos, none of which fooled the people who had already tasted the difference between wild greens and corporate greens, but the prices were just low enough and the distribution wide enough to keep customers nibbling; food chains scrambled to rebrand, vending machines reprogrammed to vend "real fruit soda" by cutting tiny amounts of actual juice into their syrup, Corpo-marketed recipes appeared on feeds showing how to "maximize flavor with simple fresh additions," all of it designed to keep the Corpo pipeline relevant even as people leaned harder on the stalls, and analysts said out loud what everyone knew—the corps couldn't kill the change, so they would bury themselves in it, turning nature into another commodity. From the perspective of crews like Maine's, it just meant more variety on the streets, more stalls competing, more reason to explore, and for people like David's mom it meant slightly easier access to affordable goods in the neighborhoods near the clinics, because if Corpo kitchens wanted to compete they had to offer introductory prices, and people like her could take advantage before the long-term contracts locked everything back down. Behind the scenes Kevin and Angela watched from their feeds, Kevin chewing on the edge of a pencil while Angela read reports aloud, both agreeing this was inevitable, that once food profits dropped the corpos would pivot, but the speed still made them wary because every Corpo shift carried hidden hooks, and if Arasaka or Biotechnica managed to convince enough people their branded "real" was safer than the wild product, then the grip of the city tightened again; still, Kevin shrugged because he hadn't built the revival for them, he had built it for the people, and if the corpos thought they could ride the wave without knowing where the water came from, they could try, but it wouldn't matter when the fields kept expanding and more stalls appeared every week, because once people remembered what freedom tasted like, no Corpo menu could ever fully erase it.