Post by Pawel on May 13, 2022 7:49:30 GMT
Absolute Knockout
Despite some of its more colourful online reviews, Absolute Knockout is not a boxing venue, though its owner would be happy to show you what he considers to be his sweet moves. He’s lived in some shady neighbourhoods back on his home planet (heard of Earth before?), you see. And not that long ago he attended a two-day long zero-G-jitsu seminar run by a black belt from NIS Security Division, so he knows his jabs from his hooks.
But Sergio Mazzarella is a lover, not a fighter. And Absolute Knockout is his love child, even if at first glance it’s nothing to write home about, Earth or otherwise. Before it was converted into a food booth, it was a semi-autonomous delivery vehicle with 300 litre cargo capacity, not unlike your average bathtub. An awning tent was added to it some years ago, in a bid to shield the owner and up to two customers at a time from the weather. The stall’s overpromising name glows on a holo sign above the entrance to the tent, illuminating a stack of cargo crates, a cleanly swept, anti-slip floor and a bioplastic plaque hung on the side of the vehicle that simply says: “kneadful, not 3D printed”.
It’s not even a lie. Sergio’s pizzas are indeed handmade, their defrosted dough balls rising in the sun, swirling in his floured hands, blushing and only sometimes burning in a massive, triple deck electric oven. Usually made to order, they do take a little while to prepare, but you didn’t come here for a soulless slice of some sad, fabricated protein, did you, friend? Besides, the food booth’s flagship Pepperonioni is almost always ready for immediate buy and bite, if you’re in a rush. Sergio likes (no, he lives for it!) a good chat while baking his pies, grating his dairy substitutes and slicing all sorts of veg and fungal outgrowths, but he’s well aware of his clientele’s busy lifestyle.
Absolute Knockout caters mainly for the inhabitants and workers of Haven’s southeastern Warehouse District. Flatbread and Sicilian crusts sell best here, along with many typically popular toppings: p-apple, rubber shrimp, bell peppers and salted jump jump, showered with red popo sauce. If real cheese is to be had, courtesy of the highly unpredictable Prime Meridian imports, its flavour doesn’t differ that much from fermented bovine kelp, which Sergio sources from the Floats. It’s all reasonably okay food, if no-nonsense nutrition is what you’re after, if you have just finished your post-IHMS liquid diet and are eager to stretch your stomach, or if your Incorp masters hold you on a 5cs per meal allowance leash.
Sergio might not realise this, but the reason he’s still in business after three years of rapidly intensifying competition and some excellent budget restaurants opening a couple blocks away, is the munchies. His food booth is situated within walking distance from a number of pharium dens, resulting in a steady (okay, a little wobbly) influx of very hungry, and not very discerning, customers. Unfortunately, none of Haven’s drug cartels hold uncontested dominion over southeastern Warehouse District, so brawls and even firefights are commonplace in the area and local shopkeepers pay - or fail to pay - protection fees to a whole bunch of different gangs, coming and going like a tide. Every year, a body or two are found in a nearby canal. But no, this isn’t how Absolute Knockout got its name either.
The food booth was once called Crusty Wheats, which was an accurate summary of its menu. Sergio struggled with his untreated traumas back then, a young man terrified of shadows, somehow both apathetic and jumpy at the same time. Trapped in his last deep sea dive for well over a year. He eventually managed to break the surface when a random customer with a dreamy smile and wandering eyes told him that he’s an absolute knockout. The native was high like a dolphin on puffer fish and she clearly just hoped for a discount, but Sergio decided that she was right. Energised by a newfound sense of self-worth, he let his hair grow longer and he started wearing tops that highlight his chiselled chest. He sold what little prospecting equipment he owned and anchored himself permanently to lambda firma, as he calls it. His short, life-breaking Long John fever was over. He vowed to stay in Haven for good and devote himself to manning his stall and kneading his pies, surrounded by other people and their stories, preferably those taking place on dry land - or better yet, on Earth. He’s seen things down there in Poseidon’s depths, you see. Inhumane things. Mouthless phantoms glistering in the cold, dense black. Giant Margheritas with overstretched bodies and long, doughy tendrils reaching out for you, tasting you. He’s seen people swim away with them out of their own volition, never to return.
Would you like another slice of the bioluminescent Hawaiian, friend?