Spooky Sweet

Editor's note:

The following is a transcription of audio recorded on a small digital device discovered by archaeologists in 2054. The device had been buried in one of the scores of industrial refuse bins used in Portland, Oregon, during the massive clean-up effort following the Swete-13 Pandemic that struck major metropolitan regions across the Americas and Europe in 2015.

Technology for accessing the device was not available at the time of its discovery, but three years later a team of undergraduates from Nike University of Oregon was able to recover most of the audio as part of a techno-forensics research project on behalf of the SPA (Swete-13 Pandemic Archive). Historians have only this week positively identified the two primary voices as those of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peter Hartsell and Iranian environmental scientist Emil Asaan.

Hartsell makes frequent directive comments to someone named Andrea. We assume this to be Andrea Hurley, Hartsell's research assistant at Parley Magazine where he was on staff. We also assume Hartsell intended to transmit the recording to Hurley at the conclusion of his interview with Asaan. The interview appears to have taken place inside Hartsell's car as he drove both himself and Asaan to Portland International Airport (now the Bud Clark Global Transport Hub).

The transcript begins approximately 3:47 into the recording and contains static and unintelligible noise throughout, accounting for the breaks in the interview dialogue. Though damaged, this audio marks the first discovery of its kind and offers a first-hand glimpse at the beginning of the pandemic.

HARTSELL: ... never get there in time. Andrea, when you get this audio ... book me on a flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City for Thursday, and then from there to Baltimore Friday ... or evening, then back to Portland Monday night or first thing Tuesday morning. (clears throat) I'm sorry, Dr. Asaan, you were starting to ... new uses of steroids in, did you say it was manufacturing? I'm sorry I got distracted by the traffic. This is ... not normally quite this bad.

(Car horn, from outside the vehicle)

ASAAN: (chuckles) I do not hold you personally responsible for the number of automobiles ... not steroids, precisely. I did mention glucocorticoids ... am most concerned about is the use of secretions, particularly those derived from pig pancreata, in food production.

HARTSELL: Okay. Right. Pig secretions.

ASAAN: From the pancreas of the pig, yes. (chuckles) As you might imagine, this is a cause of concern ... halal or kosher diet, even with the chemical ... the lab. But what is much more troubling is how quickly this was rushed through the FDA ... immediately foods containing the resulting artificial sweetener have made their way into the markets. My bioscience colleagues in Zurich—

HARTSELL: You're talking about Swete-13, right?

ASAAN: Yes. Swete-13, which has seemingly overnight replaced aspartame, sorbitol, and other additives as the artificial sweetener of choice in everything from—

HARTSELL: Swete-13: It's so sweet it's spooky.

ASAAN: That is the advertising tag ... is now a standard ingredient not only in so-called junk foods like candies and carbonated drinks, but it has found its way into cracker snacks, manufactured baked goods, fruit juices and even such staples as breakfast ... food product that comes off of a manufacturing line in the United States and New China contains this genetically modified—

HARTSELL: I thought you said it was chemical manipulation?

ASAAN: Yes. The original secretion has been ... specific enzyme and other chemicals to modify—