Member’s Mark’s scientists were hard at work. Creating the next disgusting food to fit into their collection of bland, poor tasting foods that you only grudgingly eat when your hungry or it’s about to expire is hard work. Thankfully, the cadre of evil, immoral scientists are getting a new helper today. You. Will you uncover the secrets of the world’s worst food brand, or become a helpful minion for their vile scheme?
There is a desk to the left, with a receptionist who looks rather… “homely”. You suppose you should check in with her to get clearance to enter the real lab. The right side has a large table with several bottles and jars on top. A computer screen sits above them all, showing various images of what appears to be some sort of machine room. You look around the room briefly before looking up at the ceiling. There is a small hatch behind one of the walls, which opens to reveal another passageway.

You walk down the passageway, passing by a few more desks and filing cabinets. It seems like this area was used for storage purposes as opposed to research.
You finally reach the lab, locked behind a metal door, and a door with a keypad after that. You couldn’t make out most of what that receptionist said, but she did hand you a little slip of paper with some numbers on it. You unlock the door and stroll in, not expecting what you were about to see.
You walk into the lab, which is darkly lit, with rubber tubes snaking across the floor, some patched up with duct tape. Soulless looking scientists work away at a snail’s pace, all with the same glassy eyes and near albino skin as the receptionist. One approaches you slowly and hands you a thick pamphlet filled with all kinds of colorful text and graphics. You’ve already decided to ignore the propaganda and just look at the pictures, the text was rather hard to make out anyway.

The pamphlet is a map, showing the locations of all their experiments. You’re standing in the midst of the map, somewhere in the middle of all their facilities.
The pamphlet is in very stark contrast to the actual lab. 80’s style graphics, spangled with inspirational sayings that seem slightly… off. “DO NOW!”, “CAN DO”, “PLEASE PLEASE” and the like. It’s all in all rather tacky.
There are many colors on the map, and each experiment has a letter next to it, leading you to believe that these are named after the color of the experiment.
You are a hired hand in this place, but you don’t want to ask anyone if they need help. It doesn’t matter though, a scientist recognizes you as a new hire and shuffles over to pull you over to their own experiment.
Their experiment is inside a massive aquarium. You can’t make out the creature inside, but they seem sharklike. The mindless seeming scientist weakly pries your pamphlet away and flips through it, stopping at a page themed very heavily around the ocean.
“This is ours. The Professor has spent years perfecting this one. I’m sure you can tell from the blue hue.” They point to a few scattered pictures of the creature, showing a horrible, tentacled mass of flesh the size of a small car.
“You see, we sell fish sticks, 100% synthetic. We need to keep up with the demand after all. But getting that authentic, cheap fish flavoring is hard. So we engineered this little number. Isn’t she cute?”
They gesture to the tanks next to them, and point out their other creations. There’s a tank with a bunch of embryos in it, seemingly all the different stages of development from human to… something else.
The scientist takes a breath. “But what use is a beast like this if we can’t get its meat?” You look on in horror. “What am I…”
The scientist slaps your back. “You gotta get in there kid. Get us a good bouquet of tentacles. It gets easier the more you cut off. Getting them whole is preferred. Don’t stop unless it’s completely smooth.”
You begin to shake. You can’t do this.”Ah, come on son. You’re not going to let fear rule your life now, are you? You’re already suited up, you can handle it. Oh and, mind the tentacles, these experiments can get kind of frisky if you’re not careful.” The scientist laughs. “Not really, but they are going to try to rip you limb from limb. Eh, but you’re a big guy, you can take it.”
You nod nervously, taking a deep breath. You can do this. You slowly walk past the tanks, staring at them all in awe. This was way more than you ever expected to do! At least, that’s what you thought.
You enter the next room and freeze.
You’re face to face with the beast, plastered on the glass. It doesn’t have eyes but if it did they’d be staring listlessly to the ground.
“Yeah, she gets a little droopy around harvesting season.” The scientist says casually, hands in his coat pockets. You feel sad, looking up at the poor beast. She is almost dead, her gills have stopped moving. It’s not even that big a tank…
You force yourself to look back up at the dying thing. How could someone do this to an animal? There has to be a better way to mass-produce these things!
“Enough dawdling. Get in.” The scientist pushes you in the direction of a staircase up to the top of the tank. He follows you up.
You find yourself on top of the aquarium. Bright fluorescent lights are built into the aquarium glass to make sure it stays lit perfectly, with the space you’re in given the little light that spills up. There is a wooden case built into the wall showcasing machetes, harpoon guns, knives, and other armaments. You reluctantly suit up and dive into the tank.
The creature is slithering along the bottom of the tank, completely transparent. You swim after it, and it twitches as you swim near it. You slice through the first tentacle that comes to you and your knife cuts through the stiff skin and flesh like rubber. You notice the inside matter of the tentacle is very reminiscent of the white cod you see in fish sticks. You gag. Tentacles swarm you, and there is a moment of pause before they all attack, swarming all over you.
You swing your knife around wildly, although even now it’s obvious the creature is only attacking you in self defence. It’s sad. There’s no anger, or malice, or even curiousity in the way it attacks you. It’s just a simple reflex to the stimuli of your presence.
You try not to get eaten, but it’s difficult in the number of tentacle things attacking you.
As you drearily cut through the forest of tentacles, they bleed a murky white substance out into the water. It’s clear the Member’s Mark scientists didn’t want to have to feed the creature well enough to get white cod, so they just changed the colors of its innards.
Slowly but surely, you get through the grueling task of amputating the abomination, leaving it looking like a big, formless blob, shooting out a cloudy white fluid into the water. You collect the tentacles and come back up to the overhead room. The scientist is waiting for you there.
The scientist is waiting for you there. He looks over your bloody arms.
“How did it go?” He asks, you shrug. “You got most of them, yeah?” He seems satisfied with your answer.
“We need to butcher it and get the processing machines working,” He looks at his watch.