Free Chocolate Chocolate Moons by JACKIE KINGON

Congress Drugs and the Culinary Institute’s stocks were high and needed correcting. These bursts happen all the time. It was a coincidence unrelated to our product. Lots of other stocks took a tumble.”
    “Any likelihood that some people were privy to insider information, and when stocks dropped in value, insiders sold short making a bundle?” Their eyes lock. “Care to comment about the people who ate Chocolate Moons and are in comas in the hospital? What are the chances they will not recover and will die?”
    “Like everyone, Katie, I feel terrible but as I said, I have no more information than you.” Drew’s hands rise for effect.
    “And what about Congress Drugs’ practice of giving educational grants to doctors and groups who advance drugs before they have completely cleared the testing process?”
    “One question at a time, Katy. Mr. Andreas does have a scholarship fund that brings its recipients to Mars to study. Are you accusing us of unethical practices?”
    Katie ignores the question and strikes. “What about Congress Drugs keeping negative findings on their products’ secret and publishing only positive results?”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “To me, the term investigational drugs are incomplete or vague and smacks of a smokescreen.”
    Drew leans forward and is about to answer, but Katie raises her hand. “We’ll be back with more questions for Drew Barron, executive vice president of Congress Drugs. Stay tuned.”
    The twins look at their father, slumped in his faded gray Cracked Craters sweatshirt, the one he refuses to throw out. “Drew looks so much younger than you, Dad,” Lois whines. “Are you sure you’re the same age?”
    I give the girls a serious look. “I told you at the spaceport when we arrived and you saw Drew in the Freedom Plan ad that he didn’t look like that when I knew him. He was fat. He had circles under his eyes. His socks had holes. His hair was blue. Our friends called him Lord of the Onion Rings. He looks like that now because he takes all those fake food supplements and professional stylists groom him and pick his clothes.”
    “Well…” Becky and Lois singsong.
    “Well what?”
    The girls roll their eyes. Compared to Drew, Cortland is flabby, old, and overweight.
    I put my arms around Cortland and squeeze. “Fake food from a fake guy. This is what the real thing looks like, girls.”
    Becky and Lois look at each other, shake their heads, and sigh. “In that case we’re never getting married,” Lois says.

13
     
    R OCKET KEEPS A small apartment on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, a place of fancy boutiques, trendy restaurants, vague laws, and obscure regulations, and whose “religious freedoms” allow its citizens to worship the law in spirit rather than in practice.
    Rocket arrived yesterday. The trip on the Mars–Titan transport offered a rare break from the tensions and unwanted surprises that usually fill his life and the best place to buy duty-free unregulated products at the transport’s popular Hogwarts Health Foods.
    Rocket adds a packet of rare Uranium minerals to a pot of fenugreek tea. He sniffs and stirs until it turns blue. Then he pours a cup, sits, slurps, and admires his copy of Andy Warhol’s Dollar Sign, which he bought on his last visit to the ABC (Ali Baba Caves) from Scheherazade that hangs on one wall. This makes him think about the auction at Park Bengay that made headlines when Drew Barron outbid Craig Cashew for the expensive Giacometti sculpture. He swallows a vitamin C covered in a vitamin B and lets a few ideas concerning Craig Cashew and Drew Barron percolate.
    Rocket remembers a time twenty years ago when his path crossed with budding gourmet Craig Cashew, when both were students at Why U. He still laughs thinking how Craig gasped watching him put flaxseed oil on chocolate cake.
    “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Rocket said. “Marketed correctly, chocolate flaxseed oil could be the next big