Graduate Assistant Four Fronds Turning had made the best guacamole that Mike had ever tasted in his original or post-revival life, and it was all wrong. The Jaxican had cut open the avocados in the five minutes before they went from over-firm to black, and then mashed them the exact right amount. Tart lime juice burst on Mike’s tongue, followed by the slow heat of cayenne pepper. Chunks of tomato added bite to the mix. The alien had even made tortilla chips, thick enough to hold the guacamole without breaking, not so thick as to overshadow it.

The problem was, the guacamole was too good.

“Is it not authentic, friend Miguel Warner?” Four Fronds Turning rustled in distress. “I reconstituted as many recipes as possible. I factored in what both food critics and average consumers said about different formulations. The gas chromatograph agrees that this is excellent guacamole.”

Mike leaned back against the steel kitchen counter. It was cool under his hands, just like the original one he and Jani used to work at. Back then, some hundred thousand years ago, the two of them would snark about Taco Tuesday’s food and their co-workers and the school trip kids who mixed every Coke from the soda fountain into one cursed drink. He wondered what smart remark Jani would make if she could see him helping a five-foot-tall ambulatory bush recreate that food.

God, he missed Jani. He didn’t feel like he could be himself around Four Fronds Turning. “You know our guacamole came in caulk gun tubes.”

“That packaging is next on my task list.”

“Yeah, but—” Mike grasped for how to explain where the Jaxican had gone wrong. “You’ve made excellent fresh guacamole. Taco Tuesday’s was … not that. Yours is going to go bad so fast.” Jani and Mike had left some Taco Tuesday guacamole out by the back door to see how long it would take to turn brown. After four days they’d scraped it up because it had attracted ants. “We’d defrost a tube, then squeeze it on tacos.” Like green toothpaste. “Didn’t taste that much like guacamole, really. More like the idea of guacamole.”

“Aha, a simulacrum of the true thing.” Four Fronds Turning drooped, leaves spreading across tile. “We do not have the budget for a full recreation of your industrial food processes. I shall have to contemplate.” Four Fronds Turning shivered their leaves. The speaker band wrapped around one of their stems translated that into muttering.

“You’ll get it right.” Mike didn’t know where all of his own earnestness was coming from. Reflecting Four’s, maybe. Mike stole one last bite of guacamole before Four lifted it away with their manipulator fields.

When the Jaxicans showed Mike where he’d live, a recreation of an Ikea for “research partners” like him, only his post-revival shock kept him from laughing. “You do not look thankful,” Graduate Assistant Unseen Wind’s Movement had said. The Jaxican speech bands mimicked human actors’ voices, so it was like being scolded by an affronted Kristen Schaal. “We went through tremendous effort to create this habitat.”

Unseen Wind’s Movement was a dick. Mike hated working with them on the Taco Tuesday layout. They went on and on about how the dining room needed to match what the corporate manual showed. Mike longed to flip Unseen Wind off. At least Four Fronds Turning treated Mike as someone worth listening to.

The Jaxicans had partitioned off the Ikea show floor bedrooms to give Mike and the other three revived humans privacy. They’d also made the bathroom and kitchen sections functional. “Just like a true human domicile!” as Four Fronds Turning had said enthusiastically in Samuel L. Jackson’s voice.

That first night, Mike lay awake on his MALM bed, trying to forget what the Jaxicans had told him. He hadn’t been revived because he was special. He’d been brought back because he was available.

Fewer than one in ten million humans could be successfully revived. Principal Investigator Tall Crown Spreading Gracefully had a grant to study US fast food from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. That was a thin slice of time involving a thin slice of people, and Tall Crown Spreading Gracefully only had the funding to revive a handful of humans.

Unseen Wind’s Movement had made it clear that they wanted Ray Kroc or Dave Thomas or someone else who’d founded a fast-food restaurant. Instead, they got a human who’d worked at a Taco Bell knock-off that had only lured in forty franchisees before contracting. Mike’s Taco Tuesday had been one of the few left, a forgotten relic on the outskirts of Opelika, Alabama, junk left on the shore when the economic tide had gone out.

Now Mike was one week into his after-death life, and he was so bored. All he did was sit around and wait to try Four Fronds Turning’s latest burrito or explain to Unseen Wind’s Movement what the high chairs in the pictures of Taco Tuesday dining rooms were for. He was like a corporate manual they could question.

The only bright spot in his day was dinner with the other humans. The Jaxicans had offered them nutrition paste, a thick brown slurry with worryingly blue chunks. No one wanted that. The others offered to cook, but Mike was willing to make dinner every night. He hoped to impress everyone. He’d had plans to be a real chef someday. This afterlife was as close as he was going to get.

The butter was popping in Mike’s skillet when Sidney Cooper slouched by. “You want?” she said, offering her joint. Mike shook his head.

The Jaxicans had tried to revive an Ikea visual manager who intimately understood store layouts and could make an authentic human habitat. They’d gotten Sidney, who’d only done retail sales. She’d been with the project the longest, which she dealt with by being stoned all the time. She said she’d spent her whole time at Ikea baked and didn’t plan on changing that just because she was working for aliens now. Sidney said that Jaxican weed was exquisite. Mike supposed a race of sentient plants would know how to grow the best marijuana.

Mike worried about Sidney. She seemed as untroubled as a still pond, but her smiles were a half-mask she put on. One time Mike found her staring in an ALMARÖD mirror, face slack. He snuck away without saying anything. He didn’t want to risk alienating her by trying to comfort her.

“What’s dinner?” Sidney asked.

The Jaxicans had promised Mike a cookbook so he could cook a proper dinner, but until it showed up, he was stuck with whatever recipes he could remember, in this case, “Sincronizadas.” He slapped a flour tortilla on the skillet and added cheese.

“Sounds great,” Darnell said, sitting at the kitchen bar to watch Mike cook. Mike blushed and forced himself not to turn his back to hide the skillet. Darnell had been a Waffle House short-order cook, good enough that he’d made rockstar grill operator. Mike was embarrassed at how clumsy he was at the stove compared to Darnell, even though Darnell never made a thing of it. Mike also had a crush on Darnell that he’d never confess, not until he was as good as him, and maybe not even then.

The last of their quartet, Mr. Bhatia, showed up right as his sincronizada was ready. Mr. Bhatia was quiet like a compressed spring and had a sixth sense about when and where he needed to be. He took his plate and declined the guacamole that Mike had wheedled out of Four Fronds Turning.

“Your loss, man,” Darnell said. “This guacamole is the best.”

“Not like that Taco Tuesday shit, huh?” Sidney said.

Mike had a lot of thoughts about that, but only said, “Yeah.”

The thing was, back when Mike had confessed to Jani that he wanted to be a chef, she’d challenged him to make “authentic Mexican food.” That sent him down a rabbit hole of internet sites to find out what authentic Mexican food was. His search left him more confused than before he started. Taco Tuesday made industrialized Tex-Mex, which came from Tejano home cooking. After a British food writer separated Tex-Mex from Mexican dishes, people started calling Tex-Mex inauthentic. Food that Tejano moms had cooked for their families was cut loose from history. Marooned.

Spurred on by the memory, the next morning Mike asked Four why the Jaxicans weren’t trying to recreate authentic food. Four swiveled their optic band to point at Mike and said, “But we are! We would not have been awarded our grant otherwise. The review committee approved our protocols of authenticity. Here, try this blend. I was able to re-index the Taco Tuesday nutrition information in regards to its guacamole.” It had a strange metallic aftertaste, which Four hummed about before rustling off to prepare new formulations, leaving Mike to sit at a booth and hyperventilate.

All of Earth’s lost food from long-dead cultures and the Jaxicans chose to bring back Taco Tuesday! He hadn’t let himself think about that before. He’d taken Mr. Bhatia’s first-night advice to heart: “Keep your head down and do what they ask. We do what we have to.”

In his original life, Mr. Bhatia had worked his way up from a Subway sandwich artist to owning four locations. He brought that same dogged determination to his afterlife.

Mike tried to be like Mr. Bhatia, but it turned out his determination had a shelf life of one week. It hadn’t done him much good the first time he’d been alive, either. Instead of seriously trying to be a chef, he’d kept working at Taco Tuesday after high school, hanging with Jani on his days off, seeing his mom once a week for Sunday lunch, and having no luck finding a decent guy to date who wasn’t a self-hating asshole looking to take that loathing out on Mike. He’d been waiting for his real life to start. And then at twenty-three he’d died.

He’d died! And he had no memory of it! His recollection trailed off with no definite end, like looking across a field that faded into gray fog. Fresh Dew Morning Scent, the revival tech with Gilbert Gottfried’s voice who’d greeted a newly re-alive Mike, said that was to be expected. The Jaxicans couldn’t even tell him how he’d died. His obit in The Observer was lost to time.

Mike rubbed the hard plastic tabletop. The Jaxicans’ Taco Tuesday was too pristine, like he was sitting in a set built for a TV ad. Mike had been recreated just like the restaurant. Was he even himself? Maybe he was an actor playing Miguel Warner because it was all he knew to do.

A book thumped on the table. “Tall Crown Spreading Gracefully sent this cookbook with correct recipes for you, as promised.” Four leaned their branches closer. “Friend Miguel Warner, you look unwell.”

Four brushed aside Mike’s protests and took him to see Fresh Dew Morning Scent. “I cannot let my trusted partner be unwell.”

Fresh Dew Morning Scent explained that they could tailor Jaxican weed to provide whatever effect was needed. They scanned Mike, took a blood sample, and recommended a blend that would mellow out Mike’s panic and despair.

Mike didn’t believe them, but minutes after he ate the laced Swedish Fish that Fresh Dew gave him, he realized that he did feel better. His body no longer tensed like he’d missed a step and was about to tumble down the stairs. A drug that solved existential despair and wasn’t bad for you? The Jaxicans would have made a killing back when humans still existed.

“Is the effect too strong?” Fresh Dew asked, and Mike shook his head even though he knew it was. His mind was still sharp, but the drug had wrapped cotton batting around his emotions. Mike still recognized that he had them, but he could handle them without cutting himself on their edges, like they belonged to someone he didn’t know.

Darnell noticed first. He watched Mike prepare mole sauce for enmoladas, which before would have made Mike nervous but now was just fine. After a few minutes, Darnell said, “You using?”

“Medicinal.” Embarrassment was something that happened to other people. “For panic.”

Darnell made a disgusted noise. “No place for using in the kitchen. This isn’t you, man.”

“The fuck, Darnell?” Sidney said, more sharply than Mike had ever heard her speak. “You want the kid to have panic attacks? That satisfy you? Make Mike the real him for you?”

“Three people in the afterlife and two of them are potheads.” Darnell stalked off.

Sidney took an angry drag from her joint. “Asshole. Don’t let him get to you.”

Darnell’s anger hurt in a distant way. “It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t.” Another drag, deep enough that Sidney coughed. Then she laughed. “Turns out I can get angry enough to cut through Fresh Dew’s magic weed.”

Mike paused his food prep. “You okay?”

“Not even a little.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sidney lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Wasn’t okay before. You get used to it.”

Mike didn’t reply. He’d checked the cookbook and found he’d gotten the ratio of ancho and chipotle chiles wrong. He considered confessing his error, letting Sidney know he’d messed this recipe up just like he had so many other things, but the urgency drained away. Maybe next time he’d get it right.

Darnell didn’t show up for dinner. Mr. Bhatia lingered after, for a change. “Well,” he said, hands shoved deep in his pockets, “you’re doing okay. Wasn’t sure you would. The sincronizadas were good. These were better.” He squeezed Mike’s shoulder. Mr. Bhatia had never touched him before. “Real good.”

The next morning, Mr. Bhatia was gone.

Darnell hid again during dinner the next night, leaving Mike and Sidney to eat alone. Mike hadn’t felt up to cooking, so they ate the Jaxicans’ nutrition paste. If Mike closed his eyes while he ate it, he could ignore its brown-and-blue colors, though that left him with its glue-like mouthfeel.

Sidney broke the silence. “Did you know?” She pointed her spoon at Mike. “Because if so, not telling us is a jerk move.”

No need to say Mr. Bhatia’s name. “I didn’t.”

Sidney stared into Mike’s eyes as if they’d reveal if he was lying. Evidently satisfied, she dropped her gaze to her dinner.

“Unseen Wind’s Movement told me where Mr. Bhatia went,” Mike said. “Evidently each of us can be un-revived when our project’s complete, if we want.”

Sidney set down her spoon. “I know.”

“It’s only … the Ikea’s done.”

“You afraid to ask? Why I’m still here?”

Not afraid. Fresh Dew’s drugs saw to that. “It seemed rude.”

“Three of us left. Might as well be honest.” Sidney fetched rolling papers from her denim jacket.

If she was willing to talk, then fine. “Wouldn’t it be easier to be done?”

“Hah. Million dollar question.” She stuck out the pink tip of her tongue as she concentrated on shaking weed into the paper. “Don’t you want to know what’s going to happen?”

Mike had already seen what would happen: Taco Tuesday, then death. His afterlife looked to be the same. But when he told that to Sidney, she shook her head. “I asked the Jaxicans to let me go with them when they present their research. They said yes. A whole alien world out there, man. Worlds. Imagine!”

A sliver of shame worked its way into Mike. He’d assumed she was marking time for lack of anything better to do, when she had grander plans than he’d ever had.

“You could come with,” Sidney said. “See the universe.”

He’d be on display for aliens to poke and prod and question. What happened if it turned out he really wasn’t Miguel Warner, but a poor copy of the real thing?

Some things even the Jaxican drugs couldn’t handle. Mike bolted to his feet. “I’m going to find Darnell.”

Sidney sparked up and waved him on.

It didn’t take Mike long. The Ikea showroom floor wasn’t big. Darnell had holed up in a child’s bedroom. He lay on the all-white bed, legs hanging over the baseboard, feet on a toy bin, staring up at stars painted by a turning projector globe. “Hey, Mike.”

Directness had worked with Sidney. Maybe it would work with Darnell. “You still mad at me?”

“Too busy being pissed at Mr. Bhatia. That wrinkled old SOB was supposed to tell me before he went.”

Mike collapsed into an uncomfortable plastic chair across from the bed. Everyone had plans but him. “Are you going next?”

Darnell pulled his knees to him and sat up to face Mike. “Are you?”

Mike couldn’t answer that question yet. He pulled a BLÅHAJ from the toy bin and hugged the stuffed shark. It looked up at him with unreadable black eyes.

“You should teach me how you made that mole sauce.” At Mike’s surprised look, Darnell added, “I snuck some when y’all weren’t looking.”

“I made it wrong,” Mike blurted.

Darnell snorted. “You made it different. It’s not always about consistency.”

“I thought that was Waffle House’s whole deal.”

“I could teach you grill techniques,” Darnell said. “If you want. It helps to have someone show you.”

Darnell hadn’t suggested that before. Of course, Mike hadn’t felt like he could ask him. He wondered what his afterlife would be like if he asked for what he wanted and let others ask him in turn.

He’d been silent too long. Darnell looked away. “All I’m saying is, maybe we can both get better.”

Mike couldn’t plan his whole afterlife, but maybe he could plan what came next. “Okay. Yeah.”

Mr. Bhatia’s Subway looked like every other one Mike had ever visited. A bar of shielded sandwich toppings. A back wall covered in fake brick wallpaper. Menu items in a display above the bar, sandwiches photographed to look inviting instead of wilted.

Four trailed behind Mike, rustling in a way that meant they were nervous. “We should be working on our project.”

“I won’t take long.” Mike looked over the restaurant with an ache like a missing tooth. Fresh Dew had agreed to adjust his dose, and now, with the drug ebbing, sadness flowed in to take its place. He wanted Mr. Bhatia back. He wanted Mr. Bhatia to be at peace. He struggled with the push and pull of wanting contradictory things.

Unseen Wind’s Movement pushed past Four with the sound of branches tossed onto a brush pile. “The two of you must return to work.”

Mike’s mom had been the Subway fan. Even though her jobs cleaning businesses and waitressing at the Western Sizzlin’ didn’t leave her time to cook, they didn’t eat out often. Mom had declared it wasn’t healthy. Mike wasn’t sure boxes of Hamburger Helper or Kraft Mac & Cheese were better, but when he got his own job he realized his mom had been hiding how expensive living could be. When the two of them would grab fast food, Mike always wanted Taco Tuesday. Sometimes, though, when his mom was really down, he’d let her take them to Subway.

“This is not for you,” Unseen Wind snapped. They waved branches to shoo Mike out of the Subway. “The Taco Tuesday is.”

As Mike looked around, odd details jumped out. A framed dollar bill signed with a black Sharpie. The battered microwave on the back counter with a bumper sticker from the Dallas Museum of Art. Mr. Bhatia hadn’t helped create a generic Subway. He’d recreated his.

Unseen Wind redoubled their efforts. Leaves slapped Mike’s face. “You will listen.”

“You know what, Unseen Wind’s Movement? You’re an ass.”

Four’s rustles of distress grew louder. “Friend Miguel!”

“How dare!” Unseen Wind screeched. “Rudeness towards project staff is unacceptable—stop! You cannot be back there!”

Mike had watched employees make his mom’s sandwich enough to build one himself. Wheat bread “for health.” A dollop of the fake crab-and-lobster meat in mayo. Add lettuce, tomato, onion. Sprinkle with pepper.

Unseen Wind’s manipulator fields grabbed the sandwich. “This is research, not food!”

Mike held on. “It’s made now. Even if I don’t eat it, you’ll have to throw it away. It’s gone in either case. And if you toss this sandwich, I’m on strike.”

Unseen Wind’s branches trembled like a tornado was coming. “Unacceptable!”

“What can it hurt?” Four said. “Let Friend Miguel Warner have the one sandwich. Then we will return to Taco Tuesday. Correct, Friend Miguel?”

“You are too close to the subjects to be a good researcher. You will never graduate, let alone succeed in this academic market.”

While the Jaxicans fought, Mike bit into the sandwich. The crab filling left a trail across his tongue on its slippery way down his throat. He gagged. It was so gross.

His mom hadn’t liked it, either. The Subway near their apartment gave a sticker for every sub you bought. Ten got you a free sandwich. His mom ordered veggie subs until she could get her seafood sub for free. Mike asked her why she got it if she didn’t like it. “It costs the most,” she’d said.

He took another bite, and then another, until it was gone.

The first thing Mike did was make Unseen Wind’s Movement change the store layout.

“Those are not our assigned roles,” Unseen Wind said. “I study the historical photos and create the layout. You judge my efforts. You do not direct!”

“Those photos are from a franchise manual.” Mike closed his eyes to better picture his old Taco Tuesday. “We’re going to make this match a real store. Or don’t you want it to be authentic?”

Mike didn’t actually care about it being authentic. He cared about it being his. But “authenticity” was a magic word that opened doors of possibility. Unseen Wind grumbled but eventually did as Mike asked. They replaced black booths and varnished wood tables with furniture in sky blue and salmon, colors that Mike’s Taco Tuesday hadn’t changed since the 1980s. Unseen Wind shrieked with alarm when Mike took a wood-shaping field projector and, clumsily at first, then with increasing confidence, sanded off table edges and roughed up the booth seat that Jani had endlessly kicked with her Doc Martens while the two of them ate on break. “You are ruining this store!”

The gum was an even tougher sell. Unseen Wind drew their fronds in tight while Mike chewed the stick that Four Fronds Turning had synthesized. It tasted like Vienna sausages, but the consistency was good and the color was spot on. “Tradition,” Mike explained as he slid into the booth the farthest from the kitchen. A sad ficus hid him from the cash register. “We stayed open late every Friday that the high school football team played. Everyone piled in if the Bulldogs won. Winning player stuck gum under the booth.” Mike demonstrated, wiping his fingers dry on a napkin.

“Disgusting,” Unseen Wind said. “And unhygienic. You would not find me dripping sap on my surroundings.”

“But this is true to Subject Miguel Warner’s experience, yes?”

Mike flinched. He’d been so focused on Unseen Wind’s Movement that he hadn’t seen Principal Investigator Tall Crown Spreading Gracefully enter, though how a nine-foot bush could sneak was beyond Mike. Tall Crown Spreading Gracefully filled the corner of the dining room, silver leaves flashing under fluorescent lights. Their grand stature and position on the project was only slightly undercut by their speaker band sounding like Bugs Bunny.

Unseen Wind rubbed branches together in distress. “This is a detail that deviates from official branding laid down by Taco Tuesday corporate decree.”

Tall Crown dipped towards Mike. It was like having a tree fall on him. “Your corporation allowed this?”

“God, no,” Mike blurted. He’d had a rotating series of managers, some good, some bad, but as soon as any of them learned about the gum, they made an employee chisel it off. “But it kept happening.”

Leaves tickled Mike’s face as Tall Crown straightened up. “And so it stays here.” They rubbed branches with Unseen Wind, whose leaves furled tight. For Mike’s benefit, Tall Crown said, “I told Graduate Assistant Unseen Wind’s Movement to defer to your expertise. It is why we returned life to you.”

After that, Unseen Wind followed Mike’s directions. Mike suspected that Unseen Wind’s new rustling sounds were curses, but he didn’t care. With Unseen Wind’s resistance gone, before Mike expected it, they were done. A Taco Tuesday that was as close to Mike’s old one as they could make it.

Mike stood in the center of its dining room, waiting to feel at home. The feeling didn’t come. It might have worked for Mr. Bhatia, but it didn’t for him.

With an effort, Mike shook off his funk. He had one last thing to try.

“You worked here?” Sidney muttered as she entered the Taco Tuesday. “I thought Ikea was depressing.”

“Be nice,” Darnell said.

Mike had talked Tall Crown Spreading Gracefully into letting him and the remaining humans try out the restaurant. Tall Crown had asked if the experience would be authentic. Mike said yes, though what he really cared about was that it would be true to him.

Mike had gone all out for dinner, even dressing in a Jaxican-made version of the chain’s pink-and-baby-blue polyester uniform. “Welcome to Taco Tuesday, where every day is Tuesday, what can we handcraft for you today?”

“Dude, no,” Sidney said, and then, “Double tacos, no lettuce.”

“What’s good?” Darnell asked.

Mike had a moment of indecision. It was one thing to serve Darnell enmoladas, another to give him fast food. But if Mike was going to do it, then no half measures. “Smothered crunch burrito.”

Darnell scanned the board above Mike’s head. “I don’t see that.”

“It’s off menu. Jani and I invented it. Smothered burrito plus lettuce and crumbled tortilla chips on top.”

That drew rustles from the Jaxicans observing them from over by the Coke machine. “Is that allowed?” Unseen Wind hissed.

Darnell gave a decisive nod. “Make it beef.”

Mike was the only Taco Tuesday employee in all of existence, so he had to cover every station. He moved from the register to the line, steaming the tortillas, filling them with meat, squirting sour cream from the sour cream gun. His mind quieted while his hands moved. He could do this asleep. In fact, it turned out he could do it after death.

Mike directed Sidney and Darnell to Jani’s favorite booth and set their food in front of them. “Dude,” Sidney said around a mouthful of taco. “Never thought I’d have shitty fast-food Mexican again.”

Mike placed his tray next to Darnell’s and sat. “I spit in your tacos.”

“Rude!” Sidney said. “I don’t need your sass.”

“Hush,” Darnell said.

“Observe their rituals of conversation,” Four Fronds Turning whispered. Mike decided he could live with being peered at if it gave him time like this with Sidney and Darnell. He still missed Jani, but that was okay.

Mike waited for Darnell to take his first bite. At Darnell’s approving nod, Mike relaxed. It took him a moment to realize he was smiling.

Mike pushed the edge of his fork through the crumbled tortilla chips and lettuce to cut into the soft burrito underneath. He lifted a bite to his mouth.

The scratch of lettuce and chips on the roof of his mouth. Tomatoes, acid in the back of his throat. Shredded cheddar, smooth and cool. Seasoned beef plus sauce with just the right tang.

It was perfect.

Editor: Hebe Stanton

First Reader: Hebe Stanton

Copy Editors: Copy Editing Department

Accessibility: Accessibility Editors