Constellation Games (30 page)

Howdy!

Someone named Ashley Somn wants to build a relationship between you! You ask why is ke interested in you? I can't tell you exactly; it would spoil the fun! But it's one of these four possibilities:

• Sexual partner (along with your kinner)
  
• Sexual partner (along with kes kinner)
  
• Accessory to larceny
  
• Mealtime companion
  

Are you interested?

"Hey, Ash, what's up?"

"Ariel? I can hear you but I don't think this external computer is working properly." The video-chat screen was a big off-white blur.

"Is that just an observation," I asked, "or are you calling me for tech support?"

"Esteban said I could talk to humans with this," said Ashley. "I called you because... Hold up. It's asking me for my preferred tentacle-span. It thinks I'm a Gaijin."

I'd like to discreetly bring up a topic of mutual interest to you and Ashley Somn: the topic of kinner and their lush, squeezable trunks. Every man has his preference, and every kemmer kes. I'm just a computer program, so I don't have a preference, but what's yours? Do you like 'em broad, or more petite?

"Ashley," I said, "did you pick 'sexual partner'?"

"I picked a neutral option," said Ashley.

"It's not a neutral option."

"I had to pick something," said Ashley. "I don't wish to mate with you! I'm only trying to use this weird computer. I'm quite worried about Tetsuo. A mob attacked him!"

"There was no
mob
," I said, ignoring
Your Quiescent Achievement
's incomprehensible flashing question. "People got a little excited when he mentioned our incoming case of terminal culture shock. My Western Civ prof got a bigger reaction by saying he was a Marxist."

"Ariel, I watched the video!" said Ashley. Blobs of diamond-shaped pixels representing her forehands jerked to and fro, leaving catch-up trails on my screen. She wasn't even looking at the smart paper. "He said he'd be fine on Earth, but he... This is a little fantasy for him. He's pretending that you are Ip Shkoy. Primitive members of our own species."

"That sounds like a nice, conservative strategy," I said. "I don't see how we could be any
worse
than the Ip Shkoy."

"I don't want Tetsuo to die on a strange planet because he wouldn't learn the native culture. I don't want our children to grow up with a huge gap in their bonding graph."

"I know, but..." This was exactly what I didn't need right now. "I can't babysit Tetsuo," I said. "Bai's pretty good with him. They're at about the same maturity level."

"He trusts you, Ariel. You were the first human we met."

I flipped over the smart paper for a second and made some quiet frustration noises where Ashley couldn't see. "I'll talk to him," I said, "but... I'm sorry, Ashley. I..."

"Please don't call me that anymore," said Ashley. "I'm tired of pretending that my name is Ashley. I am a paleontologist. Ashley is a name for housewives and bureaucrats."

"Okay..." I said. In the big JRPG of life, Ashley's dialogue window faded out and was replaced by one reading "???".

"We take native names on contact missions," said ???, because we have to prove we're the most adaptable species in the universe. It's stupid."

"There must be at least one human paleontologist named Ashley," I said.

"It's not my name! My name is Somn. I'm not infinitely adaptable. I'm six hundred light-years from home with no fossils to excavate, but I'm still a paleontologist and my name is still Somn."

"Okay. Somn. I can call you Somn."

"Thank you," said Somn. "Thank you, Ariel. And talk to Tetsuo, please. Now I believe I can ask you something else. In English, what is the worst curse word?"

"Now this I can help you with," I said. "This is very subjective and very dangerous territory, Somn. I think you should stick with good old reliable 'fuck.' It's got universal appeal."

"I just want to say one thing with my own emotions and have a human understand it. This translator removes the meaning from everything I say to you. I don't even recognize myself in this other woman's voice."

"Okay, shoot."

Somn leaned into the smart paper and contorted her mouth into one huge pixel.

"
FUUUUUUP!
"

"You feel better?" I asked.

"I feel a little better."

"Somn, now I have a question for you." Just a reason to call her Somn again, really, a way to cheer her up. "What's Tetsuo's real name? It can't be 'Milk'."

"I don't know what it is," said Somn. "Tetsuo won't tell me."

No longer homeless! I'm staying on a month-to-month lease at a craphole in East Austin, until I get my fire insurance money out of the jerkass insurance company. Jenny is fumigating her couch and I am back to working by myself with the drapes closed.

Bai offered to help me move with his SUV, but since everything I own right now fits in a duffel bag, I declined. (I did have to borrow Bai's duffel bag.)

Bai will also be going to the Constellation Library on my behalf when my appointment comes up next Friday. After my unauthorized conversation with Her back in August, the BEA won't allow me to talk to Class A superorganisms anymore. So Bai gets two trips this year. Yay, Bai.

"Ariel, this is your mother."

"Hi, Ma. I'm fine, I'm all moved." My apartment contained an amazing ten things.

"Oh, that's good. Honey, we have a little problem. I don't think there's any nice way to say this, but does Tetsuo know about stealing?"

I stood facing the cracked empty white wall. "Like, what stealing is?" I said. "Yeah, he knows. The Ip Shkoy had private property."

"Dad's scotch decanter is missing," said my mother. "The boarder says he's never even gone into the den, maybe he's lying; but I thought maybe Tetsuo just liked the way it looked and assumed we could get another one from the repertoire."

"I'll have a talk with Tetsuo, Ma." I pulled back the living room curtains: There was nothing outside but the night and the lights from someone else's apartment.

"It's worth a little money, but that's not... you know, he who steals my purse. But it was Uncle Toby's, and Dad has the little ritual whenever he gets a paper published..."

"I'll talk to him, Ma. I'll let you know what I find."

"You're doing okay, honey? I know the thing with your house has been really stressful."

"Yeah, Ma. Sorry, I'm real busy right now, with work."

"Okay! Talk to you soon."

"...Bye."

I walked barefoot to the kitchen and opened the fridge so I wouldn't have to turn on the light. Out of a cupboard, I took out the eleventh thing in my apartment: a cut-glass scotch decanter. I didn't have any cups, so I poured a little into my hand and slurped it up.

It tasted really fucking fantastic, thanks for asking.

GAME REVIEWS OF FIERY FIERY DEATH 2.0 PRESENTS

Tetsuo held his paper videophone conspiratorially up to his face. He crouched beneath a fluorescent light, his back against a large sickly-looking tree trunk. He'd covered his eyespots with a red bandana.

"You don't look too good," I said.

"I'm hiding in my office," said Tetsuo, "from the media. They are worse than the students."

Why was there a tree in his office? "If you want to avoid students," I said, "the best thing to do is stay in your office with the door open."

"I don't understand this joke."

"At least you recognized it as a joke. I called to ask if you want to come to another game night."

"What games will you play?" asked Tetsuo. "I don't want to play that game where you're not allowed to fold 'em."

"It's
called
Texas Hold 'Em," I said. "You can fold if you want. I got a copy of an old Gaijin game from the guy who runs the smart paper tech blog. It needs three players, and right now we got two."

"Oh!" said Tetsuo. "You should invite You'll Only See Kis Echo!. That would be more authentic."

"You have a Gaijin friend?"

"Yes," said Tetsuo, "and ki is standing right behind me. Don't make me be a rude person." The tree trunk shifted and I saw that it wasn't a tree trunk: It was the massive body of a Gaijin kinner.

"Hey, dude," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. Ki lifted a grasper tentacle in greeting and flattened Tetsuo against the desk, knocking over a vase he'd gotten from my mother. The videophone went fluttering around the room.

"Oh, You'll Only See Kis Echo!, I've heard of you," I said. "Aren't you the one who was able to give an entire undergraduate-level lecture without prophesying the imminent death of humanity?"

"I never prophesied death," said Tetsuo. He grabbed the videophone and sulked beneath the desk. "I said your culture would enjoy incredibly disruptive changes. That's happening already!"

"Man, how big is your office?"

"Not big enough!" said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "They assumed all Gaijin castes were the same size."

"So," I said, "how about you come over, give Tetsuo some space, meet my friend Jenny, play a game from the good old days of smart paper?"

"I like this," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "What game is it?"

"It's called..."

WHAT-THE-FUCK CREEK
A Game by the Crusade 6 Against Food Shaped Like Other Food
Reviewed by Ariel Blum

Publisher:
the Crusade 6 Against Food Shaped Like Other Food
Platforms:
It's a Shitload of Games! (original), Constellation smart paper (modern)
ESRB Rating:
M for strong language and intense what-the-fuck.

Once upon a time there were three little Gaijin children named Ariel (the male), You'll Only See Kis Echo! (the kinner), and Jenny (after much negotiation, the kemmer). They lived in adjoining families, they played together all the fucking time, and one doublesunny day they decided to walk through the bramble-field to the creek out back of their little podunk town.

Ariel, the male, spread out a map of the area onto the synthetic-diamond sidewalk. Apart from a few marks in the center representing the town, the map was blank.

"What's this all around the center?" said Jenny, the kemmer. "Fog of war?"

"It's an exploration map," said Ariel. "It's generated different every time. We fill it in as we go, like a tabletop RPG."

"In that case I'm taking a five-meter pole," said Jenny.

"You can't get infinite mileage out of the five-meter pole," said Ariel.

"Saved your ass in the Temple of Nahadoth."

"There's no equipment," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "We're children; we'd just eat it. In this game, you gotta rely on good old-fashioned caste memory!"

"Aaand... what's that?" said Jenny.

"You know," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!, "how each caste is born with different instinctive knowledge. You probably call it something different."

"Yes, we call it sexism," said Jenny.

"Great!" said You'll Only See Kis Echo!, to whom "sexism" sounded like an innocuous technical term. "Let's go!" And with that, the three children set off for What-The-Fuck Creek, filling in the map, scratching aimlessly at the ground with their forward graspers as they scouted out the rising brambles.

Before long something rustled in the undergrowth at the noice of the approaching children. "Hey, I found this... jumpy little snake dude," said Ariel.

"Eat it!" said You'll Only See Kis Echo!.

"That's stupid," said Ariel, and ate the little snake dude. "Well, damn. Fucking caste memory. Do we make any
decisions
in this game?"

A sonic boom divided the world into before and after, igniting a semicircle of ground that gave off thick blue smoke.

"Uh," said Ariel.

"Is this normal on your planet?" asked Jenny.

"Hit the proverbial deck!" said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. The three children sprung away from the fire and into the thorny cover.

"Ow?" said Ariel. "Brambles?"

"You're fine," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "We've got bigger problems. Somebody's using a heat gun on us."

"Did I miss something?" said Jenny, crouching behind the much larger kinner. "This is a game about kids exploring in the woods?"

"Yeah," said Ariel, "we're exploring when we make contact with an alien life form. It's the Gaijin version of
Temple Sphere
."

"You knew this would happen, and you didn't let me bring my damn pole?"

"I didn't know there would be heat guns! I thought it would be cute!"

"From continued dawdling no good will grow," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "Ariel, go see who's behind the heat gun."

"You do it!" said Ariel. "You're three times bigger than me."

"Caste memory," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "If there's a problem, the males go check it out."

"A projectile weapon is in play," said Ariel. "We should send the tank, not the rogue." Ariel ran out ahead and over a hill to see who was running the heat gun.

"Oh, shit," he said. "It's a bigger version of that snake dude I ate." The large snake dude came up through the brambles on thick centipede legs, and held a sheet of silvered plastic before it in two massive spinnerets. "That musta been his kid. No wonder he's pissed off."

"Let's parlay," said Jenny. Ke picked up a rock. "See if it understands English. Or whatever language. Say it was a mistake."

"I'm getting out of here," said Ariel, and charged the snake dude. "I'm not taking the fall for this."

"You started it, you wuss," said Jenny. She threw the rock and it landed far short of the snake dude.

"You're supposed to protect me while I go for an attack of opportunity," said Ariel. "These tactics are screwed up. The whole game is screwed up."

"You chose the game!" retorted Jenny. "You had the entire database to choose from, and you chose this one."

The snake dude cocked its eyeless head at the children, let the plastic sheet droop a little, then snapped it taut. The sonic boom caved in Ariel's trunk like
splat
and threw You'll Only See Kis Echo! backwards to crush Jenny's body atop the brambles. Then the wake of the sonic boom ignited and the three children were on fire. Black blood oozed from cracks in seared skin. The edges of the map caught on fire and the partially explored field burned to nothing. They never even made it to What-The-Fuck Creek.

"We're dead, we get it," said Ariel in the between-game netherworld. The three children floated in nothingness, graspers and walkers dangling downward in some unseen gravity.

"Let's try again," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "We'll have a different scenario next time. A less violent one, I hope." Ki reached kis graspers into invisible clouds of stardust and pulled together pieces of the map, now once again blank.

"This is impossible," said Ariel. "Three kids can't take down a guy with a heat ray. Not if the big kid stays in the back the whole time."

"Of course not," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "You instinctively ate the offspring. No snake dude will stand for that. And a child's caste memory will always lose to a heat gun."

Jenny folded her arms crossly, despite not having 'arms' per se. "So what was the point of the scenario? We were doomed."

"Children can't control their caste memories," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!. "But adults can decide how to treat each other. Humans, I don't know about. But by Gaijin or Alien standards, you two weren't treating each other very well."

"I don't like losing," said Ariel. "I don't like when the player character won't take orders."

"You might be missing the point of the game," said You'll Only See Kis Echo!

"Maybe I am," said Ariel. "I'm very stressed. I'm missing a lot of points. I thought a game night would—Jenny, why don't I go home, and you can show You'll Only See Kis Echo! some
Anasazi
? That's got the same kind of map mechanic. I need to go home and sleep or something."

Jenny was looking at Ariel. "No, don't end it like this," she said. "Let's try again."

"Okay," said Ariel. "One more run." In a flash of light, the children were reborn in their synthetic-diamond setup and set out into the woods.

This time the space alien looked like a bramble-bush with huge jagged teeth. It gave them candy and showed them some magic tricks and sent them back home. But they were never able to convince the adults of the truth of what they saw that day, floating in What-The-Fuck Creek.