Nord's Gambit — Tobias S. Buckell

Originally published in switch.blade, (July, 2002)

Think about school food, Nord said. It really takes some manipulation of the natural order to create meals that are entirely tasteless. Dirt has flavor. Paper notes you don't want the teacher to read hashave flavor. Ink from a pen you chewed too long has flavor. Foods have flavor.
But school food doesn't have any flavor.
How can that be?
What mysterious process saps away the flavor that once was Tuesday's ham-n-potatoes? Or takes the most basic unit of the food pyramid, the hamburger, and gives it a texture that even rubber wouldn't admit to?
There was more. And Nord's observations were about to get us into a whole lot of trouble...