At a crazy party in a defunct warehouse, with his friends

Your name is Chase Wallin, and you've run the gauntlet. You graduated high school last month, and now, in the depths of summer, you're grasping at straws to keep the good time going.

Thankfully, your friend Jane knows a guy who knows a guy. You (and all your friends) received exclusive tickets to an invite-only event at the old Popple Quench soda plant.

Popple Quench was an all-new soda startup that almost put your hometown on the map back in the year 2000. However, misfortune befell the company.

A series of disastrous court battles against Dr. Pepper was followed by an unfortunately-timed, and unluckily-themed ad campaign - _"Feel the pineapple jets crash into your tastebud towers!" _Popple Quench's skyrocketing R&D budget offered salvation through entirely new genres of wundertrinken that promised to change the course of the company, but... it was too little, too late.

The money dried up, and so did Popple Quench's massive soda plant on the outskirts of town.

Now, do you think an abandoned soda factory is a great place for a rave? No. Do you know how many laws the organizers violated in setting up the venue? No. Have you questioned what you're doing with your life lately? Maybe.

None of it matters. You're here, with friends, ready to go wild and crazy with the night.

Music booms through the cavernous, shadowy interior of the dilapidated Popple Quench factory. Sputtering fog machines and fanning laser lights obscure the crowd, but every so often you spot someone from your graduating class, partying hard. There's a DJ (somewhere) and drinks (somewhere else), but through the screaming and bad lighting and thumping music, you lose your bearings.

At this point, you'll count yourself lucky if you find the bathrooms again.

You bump into a broad back and spill half your can of Dr. Pepper. "Fuck!"

"Watch it loser," says the big tall guy, spinning around with a scowl.

He's uncannily familiar. Now just where have you seen him before...?

The scowl turns into a smile. "Dude, Chase!" exclaims Sully, your longtime friend. "We've been looking everywhere for you!"

"We?" you shout, recoiling when a poorly placed laser zaps you in the eye. "You found someone else?"

Sullivan reaches through the strobing fog and pulls a hot redheaded chick out from the abyss. "Saved her from the mosh pit."

"Jane!" you say, suddenly sweating bullets. "You're alive!"

Jane smiles, bopping casually to the bass hitting the air like a heartbeat. "Yo, Chase! Crazy party or what?" she calls out.

You were hoping to see more of Jane tonight than you have. She's Sully's cousin, and as long as you've been friends with him, you've had a crush on her. Janes's sporty, even more so than Sully. She likes spending her time going fast without a seatbelt - whether that's skateboarding, snowboarding, or riding motocross. S

he's also outdoorsy, which isn't really your thing. But that can all be forgiven because Jane is hot. She has bright red hair on the orange side, cut down to a messy pixie. Tonight she's in a tank top, gray beanie, and a pair of denim shorts that make you look twice - no, thrice!

You work up your courage - this might be your only shot! "Hey, while we're here, would you want to dance w-"

"GUYS! I'VE BEEN LOOKING EVERYWHERE FOR YOU!" A pretty African American girl full of excitement explodes out from the crowd, with a wide smile. Her hair's curly and short, close to the scalp, and she wears a dark dress and tights that seem to blend into the darkness.

"Indy!" Sully cries, twirling the girl into a kiss.

Indy leaps into the kiss, letting Sully spin her around once before tapping out on his shoulder for him to set her down. "

"Pearl and Yu found something you need to see," she says. "You'll love it!"

Jane's nonplussed. "What's worth finding in an abandoned bottling plant? Bottle caps?"

You and Sully exchange a look. "Forbidden soda," the two of you say in unison.

"This could be the biggest find of the century," you say..

"Soda no one's tasted in 20 years," says Sully.

"Soda no one will ever taste again," you add, transported to another time and place by the sweet dream.

"What are you waiting for?" Sully ushers Indy forward. "Lead the way, girl!"

"Arf arf!" Indy giggles, dashing off into the artificial fog.

"Come now lads, this way!" bellows Sully, waving for you and Jane to follow as he gives chase.

"You heard the man, step to!" You grab Jane's hand while you think you can get away with it, and pull her after the couple in pursuit.

"Woah!" cries Jane, as you drag her along in your wake.

Indy follows a winding course threading between great, looming, machines, bridging silent conveyor belts, and ascending flights of stairs.

Out of the darkness, your motley team stumbles into a brightly lit white room.

Either it's a kitchen, or it's a chemistry lab, or it's both. The place is straight out of the 90's, complete with CRT monitor computer terminals and cloudy distillation equipment. Old lights flicker in the corners, but overall it's so well-lit it blinds you.

When your eyes adjust, you find your friends Yutong and Pearl standing behind the counter, fiddling with a massive soda dispenser. At least, you think that's what it is.

It's not the usual, many-headed soda dispenser you're familiar with, but rather a retrofuturistic single-headed design. Being from an era before touchscreens, the dispenser features a broad analog control panel, with enigmatic buttons, switches, knobs, and LCD screens comprising the control surface. Overall, the fantastic contraption is easily three times the size of a modern soda machine.

"In the wide world of sports... I never thought I'd see this," says Sully.

"It's beautiful," you whisper in a hushed tone of reverence.

"It's... a soda machine?" asks Jane, confused.

"I knew you'd get a kick out of this," says Indigo, hugging her boyfriend's broad shoulders.

Sully wipes a tear from his eye. You sniff and rub your face with your hands. You can't let them see you like this...

Yutong and Pearl note your arrival, smiling.

"Oh good, Indy, you found Jane!" says Yutong, your token Chinese friend. It's not racist if you acknowledge the purpose she serves in your friend group in an ironic way (and more importantly, so long as you never use the word oriental!).

"And you found your way back," observes Pearl, lifting an eyebrow. "This place is a maze."

Your two friends wave you over. You circle the counter with Jane, Sully, and Indy to inspect the find.

The words JUICER MAX 2000 adorn the face of the machine in a zany 90's font. A stylish Popple Quench logo is emblazoned beneath the words. Transparent hoses, tubes, and glass injectors plug into the drink dispenser's sides.

"What is this thing?" you say, running your fingers over the cold metal surface in awe.

Pearl flips through a four-inch thick binder, with the words JUICER MAX!! MAXIMIZE THE JUICE!!!! printed on the cover. The binder is stuffed full of yellowed papers and is chaotically indexed by dozens of multi-colored tabs.

PEARL points to a spot on the page and reads along. "Step one. Mix product to taste. Step two. Administer to subject to taste. Step three is blacked out, and step four is just the word Profit! circled and underlined a bunch of times." She furrows her brow. "It looks like this thing is some kind of soda blender.... unless... wait, is this written in Comic Sans?"

"It's a drink mixer, or at least a prototype of one," says Yu, becoming excited. "This must be one of the secret projects Popple Quench was working on before they went out of business! Imagine if they finished it?"

You gasp. "We'd be twenty years ahead in carbonated drink technology!"

Jane nods seriously. "And we'd all be drinking Diet Lemon-Lime Cherry Coca-Cola by now."

Sully clears his throat. "Actually, the Popple Quench equivalent would be Limeade Berry Blast Sugar-Free Popple Lite."

Indigo laughs, balking at the wording. "Isn't sugar-free redundant with the adjective lite?"

"Oh no, that's just how Popple Quench's naming schema works," you answer. The only person who knows more than Sully about Popple Quench's product line is yourself. "Popple Quench was their base cola, Sugar-Free Popple Lite was their diet cola."

Pearl snaps the binder shut. "No wonder they went out of business."

"You guys are missing the forest for the trees," says Sully, keen on the machine. "If this Juicer Max thing is a Popple Quench soda mixer, what's stopping us from recreating every one of the 30 original Popple Quench flavors, and drinking them down till we puke?"

"Because we don't want to puke?" prompts Pearl, flatly.

You're too full of Popple magic to let Pearl drag you down. "We could actually sip our very own Saphire Berry Blast- or taste the legendary Pineapple Twin Jet Turbo!"

"You're thinking small time," says Sully. "Picture what happens a geyser of Double Sugar Slam Popple Quench hits the back of your throat."

You're in awe. "A bottomless supply of proprietary Popple Quench drink product."

Yutong giggles. "Not to crush your dreams, but this machine's been gathering dust for decades. Even if the Juicer Max was hooked up to syrup, the flavors would have all denatured years ago," she says, crushing your dreams.

Reality smashes down on you like the cold weight of the Atlantic Ocean. "Why do you have to take the fun out of everything, Yu?"

"I said sorry," says Yu, chagrined.

Sully surges forward and takes hold of the control panel. "Fuck that. My dreams remain uncrushed." He starts wildly spinning knobs and slapping buttons.

"Dude, it's probably not even plugged in," says an exasperated Pearl.

Sully flips a big white switch, and the machine suddenly comes to life. The buttons light up and a tinny mechanical whirr buzzes from within the steel casing.

"Power!" You leap for joy.

"Don't you need water to make soda?" asks Jane.

After Sully pulls a blue lever labeled H20, a bubbling rush of fluid inflates a long-dormant hose at the base of the Juicer.

"Water!" You leap for joy.

Indigo laughs nervously. "But there's no way this old hunk of junk still works."

Sully rakes his hands over all the buttons on the control panel, and the Juicer lurches against its floor mounts.

You fall to your knees, your despair gone in an instant. "N-nani? The hubris of man! It's alive, everybody, stand back!"

You throw out your arms and usher all the girls away from the mad genius operator and his holy machine.

With a powerful whoosh of compressed air from the Juicer Max, a blank aluminum can pops out of a pneumatic tube and into the waiting grip of a mechanical armature. The arm rotates and presses the can up to the Juicer's primary drink nozzle, and with a quick, powerful hum, sizzling fluid fills the can.

Once full, the armature rotates the can off, seals it, and etches a label into the blank metal. The Juicer presents the finished can of soda on a central tray.

Cold steam wafts off the can, which sweats with sudden condensation.

Sully swipes the can dry and, reverently, inspects it. "Popple Quench," he says, in awe. He shows the rest of you the can as if it's a bunny he's pulled from a hat.

The classic Popple Quench logo is laser-etched into the side. The logo even shows different shades of color.

"You can't drink that," objects Yu, "what if it's toxic?"

"Only one way to find out," says Sully, steeling himself. He pops open the can. It hisses. Sully squeezes his eyes shut, tips it back, and takes in a whole mouthful without hesitation.

When he doesn't instantly perish, Sully warily opens one eye. He swishes the soda experimentally between his cheeks, and swallows.

"Is it good?" questions Indigo.

"Is it bad?" questions Jane.

Sully steps away from the machine, smiling, and offers the can to the audience, with a tempting shake. "See for yourself."

You cut in line, seize the means of hydration, and gulp down as much as you dare.

The soda fizzes intensely on the way down, reminding the palette of Dr. Pepper, diet Pepsi, and grape soda, all mixed together at once, with an extra dash of high fructose corn syrup for taste.

Its essence, however, is unmistakable as any of the above drinks. And somehow, paradoxically, you can't even say it's bad. In a bizarre, unexplainable way, the drink is even kind of good - except for the alarmingly hard mineral aftertaste that punches you in the throat seconds after swallowing.

The aftertaste confirms it. It's an aftertaste which, thanks to the tireless effort of amateur internet soda historians the world over, has been meticulously documented for posterity. The Popple Quench post quaff je ne sais quoi.

You don't believe it, but believe it you must.

"It's Popple Quench," you confirm, turning to offer the can to Jane next. You can think of no other girl with whom you'd rather share an indirect kiss.

After watching Jane taste the Popple Quench with as little of a respectable distance between you as possible, the soda is passed among your friends. Yu resists tasting the possibly contaminated drink until everybody dogpiles her in peer pressure and she succumbs.

While they're distracted, your attention wanders back to the machine. Like a moth to flame, you approach the Juicer Max 2000 and take over Sully's spot at the controls.

Is this how it felt to be a frantic Quenchologist, busying himself with formulas in those twilight days of the company? At a time when total victory and a revolutionary new future for European civilization seemed just out of reach? No snack and beverage company before had dared attempt such a radical realignment of the world order. You suspected it would never happen again, either.

With that sobering thought, you inspect a machine straight out of the frenzied, sugar-fueled visions of Popple science.

On the face of the Juicer, each Popple Quench brand soda is represented by its own illuminated button (Popple Quench, Sugar-Free Popple Lite, Pineapple Twin Jet Turbo, etc), but there are way more indicators and buttons than should reasonably exist on a drink dispenser.

And the biggest button, which instantly attracts your eye, simply reads JUICE. It's right next to the main soda buttons, but off to the side on its own panel.

Why?

To answer the riddle, you press the big button.

It gives a satisfying click and lights up. The Juicer Max suddenly hums with a powerful, and oddly menacing, bass tone.

Self-conscious of your experimentation, you check of your shoulder.

Indigo retches. "The aftertaste hits like day-old grapes," she rasps, eyes watering. Indy tries to scrub her tongue clean on the back off her arm. The others laugh like a sitcom.

"Can't handle your Popple, Sweetie?" asks a condescending Sully, tenderly rubbing her back.

With none to belittle or snark at your actions, your boldness returns in ****. Beneath the main soda buttons, a second row of buttons labeled SYRUPS draws your eye. The currently illuminated button reads POPL. You read through the others:

POPL
TYPE
TYP2
TYP3
RELA
PROF
STYL
FTSH
ETHN
PHYS

... and so on.

Curious, you push the TYPE button.

The Juicer Max shudders, and you jump back.

The main row of Pople Quench soda buttons retracts into the control panel and rotates up out of sight, into the machine. On the same internal cylinder, a new set of smaller buttons rotates in to take its place. These buttons are simply white with black letters, no illustrations, and come in a neat quadruple row. You read a few:

BMBO
TMBY
GOTH
PUNK
SLUT
ARTS
PREP
ATHL

... and so on.

It doesn't take a genius to work out the abbreviations. Bimbo, tomboy, goth? The hell is this? You press BMBO to find out what happens. Predictably, the BMBO button lights up. But also, an indicator light for the panel next to the JUICE button - labeled "FLAVOR" - flashes with it.

The FLAVOR panel hosts an overwhelming array of labeled toggles, like an antiquated 1950's style computer:

--Alert--
Server - ON
Drinker - OFF
Witness - OFF
Public - OFF

--Scope--
Normalcy - OFF
Memory - OFF
Local - OFF
Global - OFF
Retroaction - ON

--Potency--
Aesthetic - ON
Stylistic - OFF
Interests - OFF
Lifestyle - OFF
Personality - OFF
Motivation - OFF
Mental - OFF
Physical - OFF
Sexuoerotic - OFF

Purity: 100%

A dial beneath the flavor panel labeled "PURITY" reads 100%, complete with a knob to adjust.

You lack the context to say what any of this stuff means, but the JUICER MAX is a drink mixer. It should explain itself with the final product. So here's the go button? Serving size: one, container: can, carbonation: high...

Pour. There it is. You grin and slam the button.

The machine whirrs to action a second time, cutting through your friends' chatter.

"Chase got it working again," notes Yu.

Sully squints at the machine. "Bro, where did the drink menu go?"

You pretend innocence. "I pressed a button."

The Juicer Max fills a silver can with clear pink soda, seals it, and laser etches a title on the side: Bimbo Juice Xtra Lite.

Pearl comes closer to inspect the can, reads it, and scoffs. "Popple Quench had a soda line called Bimbo Juice?"

"Awesome. Can't say I've heard of that one," says Sully, taking the can to appraise it up close.

Pearl gives an irritated huff. "Again. This is why they went out of business."

"Can't knock it till you try it," says Jane. "Maybe it's good. How would you know?"

"Any soda with a title that tasteless has to suck," Pearl says dismissively. "Its mere existence is an insult to women everywhere."