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Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Gilford-Salum Vaquera Project Update Conference Call. As a reminder, the conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to mister Travis Courier, chief executive officer and director of Gilford-Salum. Please go ahead, sir.
Travis Courier: Much appreciated, Jaylene. Thank you all for joining us today. Jaylene if you could just get a quick roll call.
Operator: Yes sir. Calling roll.
Mr. Jim O’Keefe - Chief Operating Officer. Connection confirmed.
Mr. Tom White - Investor Relations Officer. Connection confirmed.
Mr. Alex Huang - Defense Liaison Officer. Connection Confirmed.
Mr. Dave Cobb - Chief Marketing Officer. Connection Confirmed.
Mr. George Scot - Chief Research Officer. Connection confirmed.
Mr. Linus Polini - Chief Compliance Officer. Connection confirmed
Travis Courier: Thank you, Jaylene. So, we have, the main purpose of this meeting is for George to share some updates from the Applied Research Division, the, uh, so-called. Vaquera Project. Uhm, but before that we need to just get a quick roundup on what’s happening with the harlequin fungus. Jim, you have something here for us?
Jim O’Keefe: Yes. If I could just get these slides up on the screen. All right, is everyone seeing this?
Travis Courier: We see it Jim.
Jim O’Keefe: I know some of you are calling in from the beach here today. Lucky, lucky bastards.
Tom White: Well, not too lucky. This is my vacation.
Jim O’Keefe: Where are you? Where are you, Tom?
Tom White: Oh, you know where I am.
Jim O’Keefe: Well, I'm sure you have a pocket full of lollipops and chocolate bars if you are where we think you are there, Tom.
(Laughter)
Tom White: Oh, you know. Gotta keep the investors happy.
Travis Courier: Okay, okay, settle down, gentlemen.
Jim O’Keefe: Be sure to hydrate, Tom.
Travis Courier: So you have the presentation for us here, Jim?
Jim O’Keefe: Yes, okay. So, some background information. So as you know, the harlequin fungus was attributed to some of our feedstock in the Central Valley. Not proven, as you know, we fought that one. We fought that one good, but still, the attribution fell to us. We took a hit on that one. The harlequin fungus, it was a situation where, you know, the fungus spread to humans, some of the consumers of our product, of our fine meat products, and led to some nasty mouth, nasal, ear, and eye infections. Here, let me just get a slide up there for you.
Alex Huang: Ah, Jesus, why are you showing us this?
Travis Courier: All right, get that off the screen, please.
Jim O’Keefe: Yeah, so, um, that was, you know, there's a lesson here. The actual number of infected was very, was absolutely minuscule. You know, we're talking less than 8% of our consumer base, just, um, you know, 100,000 people, but, uh, it was the aesthetic aspect of the fungus that, uh, really came back to bite us. So, um, you know, in the future, it's actually better if we're dealing with diseases that cause increased mortality, heart problems, things that don't actually show up. You know, things that people can't see. You know, the American people, they will, they're on our side. You know, they want our product. They like our product. They enjoy our product and they're willing to tolerate certain consequences of our product, which I'll add are also consequences of consuming any meat products. So really put that one down in the books. If we see manifestations of physical symptoms like this, you know, if we see any workers that have mold growing on their lips, lichens or ringworms on their wrists, on their genitalia, anything growing out of their ears, any strange crusts on their eyes. I know a few years back we had that bacteria that was growing on people's armpit hair. We really need to, we need to take that seriously, you know, even if it isn't a health hazard, it doesn't look good.
Travis Courier: I do believe that a lot of the people suffering these symptoms are here on the guest worker program, so why can't we just ship them back, you know, ship them back where they belong if we start to see signs of that?
Jim O’Keefe: Well, that's a good point, and you know, that is, that is how we usually operate. But with the harlequin it got so bad — you know we can’t just chuck these people out the plane. Someone has to take them in, and even our partners don’t want a bunch of freaks with mold growing out of their eyeballs. I just want to emphasize that it's the aesthetic nature of these illnesses that we need to keep an eye out for. You know, the media, they like a story. And our Media Control has been doing a bang up job.
Dave Cobb: Thank you, Jim.
Jim O’Keefe: But, you know, this is, the photos are bad, and with the new, if someone sees something like this, they're going to share it. So let's pass it to Dave in Media Control and see how you guys are trying to get ahead of this.
Dave Cobb: Right, so we have been working non-stop to flood the zone. We have taken pictures based on the fungal growth, and we've used our astroturfers to create lots of simulated, easily flagable AI programs that mimic these appearances. And as you know, that allows us to seed, to seed some doubt there as to the province, as to the origins of where this is coming from. You know, we have various publications running debunk stories on the fungus, and we've got media interviews lined up, podcasts, video influencers. We've got, you know, and, you know, we also have a story that we're running with now that's really picked up traction, that the fungus is caused by the new wave of refugees from Africa, and we're really getting a lot of traction with that. So we've been tapping the gas and spreading the love, as it were, among our friends in the capitol building down in Washington. Of course, we'll be supplying some junkets to everyone's favorite vacation island as well. And we're going to get ahead of this.
Tom White: Some of our boys are here now.
Jim O’Keefe: Alright, so, thank you there, Dave, Tom. You see, it’s all well in hand.
Travis Courier: Thank you, Jim. Now, gentlemen, we, next on the agenda, we're going to switch to George here. And George is going to give us an update on a really fascinating project we've been working on. That we're hoping in the future is going to sidestep a lot of these issues. Especially, you know, our issue with the antibiotics. Right, so George, you want to give us some background on this first?
George Scot: Yes. So, as you know, for the past couple of years now, we have been dealing with some antibiotic resistance in our cattle stock, and also anti-fungal resistance, leading to outbreaks such as the aforementioned harlequin fungus. And Dave, I believe your people were working on a campaign to reduce antibiotic use in the general population?
Dave Cobb: Yes. The Safer Cities campaign was designed to seed some doubt as to the effectiveness of antibiotics among the general population, along the lines of vaccine skepticism. And we did see major growth there. We now have strong organic movements that have picked up the story. We have people boycotting antibiotic soaps, people refusing antibiotics in hospital, people claiming that antibiotics cause various diseases. You know, I believe there is, we have some, some of our experts working to correlate it with birth defects. And you know the public is really hungry for these kinds of stories so we haven't had too much trouble with this one.
George Scot: Now Dave, you're doing a hell of a job, I just want to echo that. And you know it, it's not, I'm not trying to pass this football to you.
Dave Cobb: No, no, I'm not taking it that way.
George Scot: We have the reduction — the fact is, gentlemen, the reduction in terms of antibiotics in the general population is insufficient to make up for the deficiency of application to the cattle stock.
Alex Huang: What are you saying, George?
George Scot: I’m saying that with no new antibiotics on the horizon, we have antibiotic resistance developing in our cattle stock.
Dave Cobb: Yes, so, you know, I’ll add, we have gotten our boys in the house to loosen the requirements for — some very strict requirements — for food safety. You know, we are able now to process meat with a higher threshold of diseased stock. You know, I think we're up to, what is it, 25%? Jaylene, could you check that?
Operator: 25%, yes that is correct.
Dave Cobb: Thank you, Jaylene.
Jim O’Keefe: And, you know, obviously we’re trying to avoid situations like we had there with the harlequin fungus. But at the end of the day, you know, some of these diseases are starting to affect the bottom line in the processing of the herds. We're getting, you know, we're harvesting younger and younger, but these calves are calving from diseased mothers. They gestate diseased, they come out diseased, they don't grow right, they don't put on weight properly. Doesn't matter what we feed them and we're losing a lot, a lot right out the calving. Last year, we had to cull about 16 million calves and that was, that was a big hit, you know, that was a big loss and we still haven't been able to, to nip this little bacteria bastard in the bud here.
Travis Courier: Right, so that brings us to the Vaquera Project. George, you wanna go ahead with that? Keep us on topic here. I know some of us have other places to be, and Tom, we don't wanna keep you from your … liaisons.
George Scot: Right. So, the Vaquera Project was born out of a rather interesting phenomenon. Our advanced polling team, and this goes back to you, Dave, as part of a media control campaign, put out a poll asking people if they would be willing to eat other human beings. And we got a rather surprising response to that. You want to bring that up?
Dave Cobb: Yep. So we got a 40% positive on that one. Jaylene, double check me on that?
Operator: Yes, sir. Forty per cent.
George Scot: Now obviously we, uh, you can't really take that, uh, seriously, you know um people on the internet will say all kinds of things. But it did get us thinking — what if we could, uh, kind of skirt some of these new protection rules if we had something that, uh, wasn't quite a cow. So, you know, with fewer and fewer antibiotics functioning, we were able to find a population of, what were they? Zapatillans I think they're called. Yes, so these are women from central America, and they have a natural predilection to put on muscle. We're talking big, hefty women here.
(Laughter)
George Scot: And so, you know, we were able to get them, get them cheap. You know, there's a whole abundance of people willing to sign a paper on the border right now who aren't going to read the contract too closely. So we got about 800 human capital stock to sign up for our little experiment. And of course we had a progenitor clause in there so we could retain ownership of the progeny. And we've had some really astonishing results. So first of all, before you get any sick ideas, we are not doing the fertilization. No, we have no studs involved. Though I'm sure, Tom, some of your boys might be interested.
(Laughter)
Alex Huang: Maybe for your next little vacation we can fly you down to stud.
Tom White: Well, I'm not sure if my wife would appreciate that.
Alex Huang: Well, what she doesn't know can't hurt her.
George Scot: In any case, so, so we have here, we modified the, we divided the 800 HCS into groups, 7 experimental, 1 control. Control were the lucky ones, they got their visas and got to sit around in a nice little apartment and eat tacos all day. So, quite the win for them. In any case, six of the experimental groups were a bust. One group had some kind of nasty reaction, some kind of uncontrolled cancer that was created by the introduction of the thyroid enhancing genes. Some pretty grisly stuff there. We had 100% mortality. So we passed that one along to Alex’s boys in the special services division because maybe Langley is going to be interested in that one.
Alex Huang: Oh, they're working on it as we speak. Let’s just say the world’s gonna get a little safer for freedom one prostate at a time.
(Laughter)
George Scot: In any case, we're talking about group VAQ-7, the vaqueras. This stock showed remarkable growth. We saw some, with a simple slurry of soy paste and wheat, they put on 40% more fat and a whopping 18% muscle growth. We showed some remarkable ability to increase this human capital stock’s protein and fat content for very little expenditure. You know, also they're easier to maneuver. You know, they respond to commands. We did have to perform some chemical alterations to the brain using some electrical stimulation and a drug cocktail, but they're very pliable. You know, you don't have to herd them. They respond to commands. They're very docile. They, you know, you can plop them in their cells, which are actually smaller than the cells of bovine capital stock that we have, and you know, you just put some soap operas on the TV and they're happy.
(Laughter)
George Scot: No, but in reality we snip a lot of the connectors to the prefrontal cortex so there's not a lot going on in there. I mean, in many respects the human capital stock are dumber than the cows we're working with and they're far less dangerous.
Tom White: I’m sorry, I just want to make sure I am getting this correct. We’re breeding these women for slaughter?
George Scot: Yes, for slaughter. We found it to be quite cost effective. We don't have to worry about antibiotic regulations. These women retain their humanity and the human rights that come with them. So we can pump them full of just about any drug that we desire. Even better, with the contracts that they signed and the progenitor clause. It's all legally bound up. You know, one of the funny things with a cow is it can't consent to be slaughtered. But a human being can. A human being has rights, including to right to forgo rights with a contract.
Travis Courier: Well, that's some mighty interesting work, but what concerns me is — what about the taste?
George Scot: So, we've got that covered. You know, we did produce a few generations of the human capital stock. Obviously, one issue is the gestation period for a human being is far longer than for that, than a cow raised for slaughter. But we have some of these growth hormones and our boys in the gene lab have done wonders and we we're able to get the human capital stock up to a sufficient weight for slaughter in a reasonable, in a comparable time frame of two years.
Travis Courier: Two years?
(Low whistle)
George Scot: Now, obviously that means we have to divide up our human capital stock. We have some that we designate as breeders, and you know, we let them mature. Obviously, every generation we're doing tests to see which, which aspects are going to be the most useful to us here. You know, wide hips, high fertility, they get moved into the breeding program. Lucky them. And like I said, we're using a standard artificial insemination here. Though we have toyed with the idea of creating a kink category just for Tom.
(Laughter)
Travis Courier: Okay, okay, boys. Enough.
George Scot: So, yes, we divide the human capital stock into three categories. We have some breeders, which, you know, the gene therapies can really accelerate development. We let them mature until the age of four, at which point we can induce menarche and begin the breeding cycle, to try and experiment with new stock. Then we have the human capital stock that we raise for slaughter. We raise them to the age of two, at which point they are sufficiently grown and marbled enough to be harvested. And then we get the milkers, which is a happy accident here. We found that one of our hormone cocktails would, well, it would grow the uh, mammaries of these human capital stock, and their milk production would skyrocket. And, you know, we've begun milking them and testing them in various products for, obviously, milks and cheeses. And, you know, that's going along real well.
Travis Courier: Let's get back to the question of taste, though.
George Scot: So, yes, we have presented in a blind taste test the vaquera meat versus the traditional bovine meat. And we have found that the untreated vaquera meat does come across as gamier than the untreated bovine meat. And that is something that customers notice, however, if we apply certain blends of bovine and vaquera meat, we can actually achieve a similar taste and texture to the bovine meat without the consumer noticing. And in fact, in some cases, we have consumers preferring the blend.
Travis Courier: What's the ratio on that blend?
George Scot: I think the ideal ratio we came with was 60% vaquera and 40% bovine. And because the vaquera meat is so much cheaper, we're looking at some considerable cost savings there. I think, Jaylene, what do we have that at?
Operator: That came to 38% cost savings per burger.
Travis Courier: Hoo-wee.
George Scot: Yeah, it's a doozy.
Travis Courier: That's good, George. That's real good. What are we thinking in terms of media control here? Are humans ready to accept consuming this kind of freaky new meat? We know that we were able to muscle out the plant-based meats pretty easily.
Dave Cobb: Oh, you say easily, it was a fight. Those vegans do not shut up.
Travis Courier: Well, you know, we have great faith in you, Dave. But will the consumer accept this?
Dave Cobb: Well, let me point out first of all that we are, thanks to our boys in the capital lobby, not obligated to report the specific sourcing of any meats. You know, when we introduced the cricket blend to the Jam Burger, I think we got to 33% cricket meal. And all we had to do was add a little asterisk saying that it was from a blend of various meat sources and the public had no problem with that. Generally, you know, they're not going to ask too many questions about where that beef is coming from. You know, they just want it to be good, to taste good, and to be easy on the wallet. Good for the mouth, good to fill up the belly, and easy on the wallet.
Alex Huang: But what occurs to me is maybe we’re thinking a little small here.
Travis Courier: Now what are you saying there, Alex?
Alex Huang: What I’m thinking is — do you think it could ever be a draw? Eating humans?
Dave Cobb: Well, I don't know. I don't know that we could say that.
George Scot: You’ve been spending too much time with the boys at Langley, Alex. It’s making you a little a weird.
Travis Courier: Now, gentlemen, there are no bad ideas here.
Dave Cobb: I mean, one thing that I think we could do, is we could try and get ahead of any controversy by seeding some stories about the Vaquera — what we’ll call the Cow Girl Burger, being made with human meat. And get that well in, well out there amongst the public into our usual conspiracy sources, and then have some very public testings of Cow Girl Burgers that don't have the human meat in them. And, you know, I think if we did that, we would be just dandy. You know, then we could get ahead of the story there. And so then when we do begin introducing the HCS meat, you know, it's old news. Anyone who's concerned about it or doesn't like it, you know, that's just going to, you know, they've already been debunked. They're already the crazy people and your average burger-loving consumer will just shrug their shoulders and go about their day.
Travis Courier: All right. All right. I like that. You know what? I think that's the play there. We're gonna... Dave, why don't you begin putting together a plan for this? And, you know, I think we're gonna move quickly on this, because those kinds of savings are something we're gonna want to start getting into the stream right away there. So, Linus, let’s, let's move to you. What does legal think about this? Are these clauses, are these contracts gonna work? Can these people legally consent to be slaughtered?
Linus Polini: The contracts are certainly legal. I had my team put them together. This is going to be more a question of sequestering the HCS. They signed the contracts. The contracts are binding. We just, we want to be sure that no one gets cold feet and makes a stink about it. I’m sure we’d win this cases but it’ll create a lot of headwinds and make some problems for Dave. George, you’re sure these HCS are no capable of thought?
George Scot: They are completely docile. Can’t even talk. Hell, can’t even moo.
Linus Polini: The situation we want to avoid is one of these HCSs trying to renege on the contract or advocate for their own rights. And God forbid one of them could escape. That could be a real nightmare for us. Some kind of animal rights activists getting one these HCSs in front of a camera.
Travis Courier: So, why don't I pass that back to you, George?
George Scot: Well, you know, that is certainly something we've thought about in great detail, and let me tell you a little bit about the precautions we've taken here. Obviously, we have the electro lobotomies, which really these, I mean, these work wonders. You get these HCS under an MRI, you show them a picture. It's dark as the Mariner Valley in there. I mean, there's nothing lighting up, nothing going on. These, we're talking about brain stems and breathing.
Alex Huang: Hey, that's just the way Tom likes ‘em.
(Laughter)
George Scot: So, I think we got that covered on that front. In terms of those raised for slaughter, Um, you know, uh, they're, we're talking very, uh, young, uh, HCSs here. They, you know, they go under the air gun at, at age two, so I'm not really anticipating any issues there. Um, and of course, you know, after we had that little incident with those, uh, agitators last year we've upped security. Let me just put it this way. You've got a better chance of breaking into The Pentagon than you do breaking out of one of these installations.
Travis Courier: All right, all right. I like the sound of that. That's good. That's nice work there, George. Thank you very much, Linus. My last question is going to be in terms of scalability. What's the current population of the vaquera HCS?
George Scot: Well, you know with group Vaq-7, well, we started with a hundred individuals. This is one area where it's getting a little hairy, is we have, you know, we've been screening starting with the employees for various male fertilizers for the stock. We've come up with some really great, really great samples assuming assuming Tom doesn't get in there and drink them all.
(Laughter)
George Scot: But one thing we are going to want to keep an eye out for is, this is, uh, we're working from a pretty small population to create these human capital stock so we are going to see some unfortunate mutations develop. We are trying to get ahead of this issue by coordinating with the cloning division. And if we can, if we can get the cloning going at scale, I estimate, you know, in a year, year and a half, we could have a population well into the hundreds of thousands.
Travis Courier: Well, that's real good work. That's real good work there, George. Gentlemen, I don't know if any of you has anything to add, but let me just say, I'm really impressed with this initiative that you've shown here. And, you know, I think this has my full-throated support. Would any of you gentlemen like to add anything?
Tom White: George, you're a sick bastard, but goddamn, you've earned your trip to the island this year.
(Laughter)
Travis Courier: Thank you very much gentlemen. Uh Alex, I believe I’ll see you on the links tonight, uh, assuming the missus lets you out.
Alex Huang: Yes, yes you will and uh all right, Tom, you enjoy your vacation and try to keep your boys out of the news.
Travis Courier: Very good. I’ll see you see you all later. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes the Gilford-Salum Vaquera Project Update Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.
I'd love to be part of a table read for the radio version of this twisted piece of near-futurism. A lot of thought has gone into the corporate self-justification and tone of the bloody awful people on this call. Read like a black-mirror script that even Netflix might have baulked at... love it as always Andy...
You know, there's a point in reading your stuff that I get to something absolutely horrible, like the mold, and I'm like, "Naw, this isn't it, he's gonna go harder and I am scared for it," because what is considered someone else "turning it up to eleven" is really just a six for you.
Then the turn with babbies as livestock happened.
My god, Futuro! This was fucking excellent satire. I've been really enjoying all your dialogue pieces. Spectacular stuff!