Constellation Games Read online

  "This one's for Bizarro Kate," said Jenny. "Can you come in and set up the Xbox?"

  "What? No."

  "I'd do it," said Jenny, "Except some of the Brain Embryo cables look like they're alive. I don't want to unplug them and kill something."

  "What's wrong with the Brain Embryo?" I said. "This is a Brain Embryo cookout. The whole point is to show it off."

  "Nothing, I mean, it's a nice screensaver—"

  "The starfield is the title screen," I said. "No one is actually playing Handle the Real Style?"

  "I don't know how it works! Where's the other controllers? Are we all supposed to get cozy on the abacus?"

  "Curic only sent the one controller," I said. "It's like a PC."

  "Well, that's not a good party system, right?" said Jenny. "So, Xbox?"

  "No! If we set up the Xbox, the boys will turn this party into a Temple Sphere fragfest and the girls will be pissed."

  "They're pissed right now," said Jenny. "Can you ask Curic for more controllers or something?"

  ABlum: hey are u awake

  * * *

  Curic: What a question! I'm always awake.

  * * *

  ABlum: i need multiplayer on the brain embryo

  it is a party emergency

  can you drop me some hardware

  or give me some instructions

  * * *

  Curic: I can't drop anything anymore, by arrangement

  with your government.

  Many humans were worried that if we dropped small

  things like video game systems we might also drop large

  things, like asteroids.

  * * *

  ABlum: shit

  ok what about instructions?

  could you just find me a multiplayer game

  i am cooking right now

  * * *

  Curic: There are no multiplayer games for the Brain Embryo.

  * * *

  ABlum: what??

  * * *

  Curic: It was a primitive computer.

  * * *

  ABlum: dude every non-portable game console in human history has supported multiplayer

  do you know the name of the very first human video game?

  tennis for two

  for TWO

  * * *

  Curic: Things were different for us.

  * * *

  ABlum: shit

  Bizarro Kate slammed the screen door open. "Jenny, your weird friend is here," she called out.

  "That doesn't go very far," said Jenny. "What's she look like?"

  "It's a dude," said Bizarro Kate. "The perv with the pecs."

  "That's Ariel's friend," said Jenny. "Go talk to Bai," she told me. "Get him to keep Dana in his pants while real people are around."

  "Okay, take over," I said. I handed her the tongs.

  "Take over what?" said Jenny. "You only need to turn the meat once. This isn't the Fifties." I was gone into the house.

  In the living room, Bai was introducing Dana to Jenny's friends. "So it's like a paper doll?" said one unsuspecting nerd girl.

  "No, she's so much more than that!" said Bai. "See, she—"

  "Heeeey," I called out, slapping Bai on the back, feeling like a big fat faker. "Let me get you a beer!" I steered him, not into the kitchen—O treacherous Ariel!—but up the stairs to the landing.

  "Soooo," I said, "what's new with you and Dana?"

  Bai beamed. "Check it out, bro," he said, and slipped his phone into my hand. "Finally. Nearly perfect."

  Over the past year, Dana has gone from a generic "blonde" virtual girlfriend, through a variety of virtual plastic surgeries, hair restyles and wardrobe changes, to someone who looks to be doing a pretty good cosplay of Dana Light. Yes, Bai has finally recreated the PS2-era outfit that we all loved when we were teenagers, with the leather pants and knife holsters on the belt and everything. The knife holsters probably not being part of the standard virtual girlfriend repertoire, since the first I saw of Dana, she was checking her makeup in a camo-pattern compact; and when she noticed that a strange man was looking at her, she smiled coyly and said nothing. Neither of which are animation loops I associate with a fucking ruthless bounty hunter.

  "That's really... accurate," I said, not wanting to say "good."

  "I decided it was time," said Bai. "Last week, you know, that we'd finally got to the point in our relationship where I could introduce her to my parents."

  "What, with the knives and everything?"

  "No!" said Bai, like he thought I was a real dummy. He took back the phone and tapped through some menus. Dana's outfit shifted to a purple evening gown, hair up in a bun—well, not a bun but whatever that's called—a diamond necklace around her neck that probably cost about as much as a real necklace, despite being made of compressed object code instead of compressed carbon.

  "She sure cleans up nice," I said.

  "Yeah, but it doesn't matter," said Bai. "because my folks hate her. Just like they hate every woman I've ever dated. Because she's not Chinese."

  I did not think this was the real reason, but I just said: "Well, her hardware's Chinese."

  "Parents!" said Bai. "What can you do? Did you say you were getting me a beer?"

  "In a minute," I said. "I have to ask you a favor. Do you know why gay people can't get married in Texas?"

  "How is that a favor?"

  "Do-you-know-the-reason."

  "Well, yeah, it's because of peoples'... whatever."

  "The word is prejudice," I said. "Fifty years ago no one wanted to see an Asian guy with a white girl."

  "Fifty years ago? How about now?"

  "And ten years from now, a human will want to marry an extraterrestrial, and people will be upset about that. But right now, what people don't want to see is a flesh-and-blood human carrying on a relationship with a piece of software." (Putting aside for the moment all questions about the capabilities and limitations of that software, I added to myself.)

  Dana frowned at the silence of Bai thinking over what I'd said. She looked at me. "Hi, Ariel," she said.

  "Hi, Dana," I said.

  "So, Jenny has a problem with..." said Bai.

  "I just want her to have a good time at the party," I said. "She's had a really tough time lately with shitty clients," I said. "Can you... humor her? Just don't wave Dana around at her friends."

  "Dana'll miss the party," said Bai.

  "Is there any functional difference," I asked, "Between introducing her to people at the party, and introducing her to people on TV?"

  "Not really," Bai mumbled. He looked up. "Okay, no Jenny's friends. But I can introduce her to you, yeah?"

  "She already knows me," I said, "from last time. She called me Ariel just now."

  "Awesome!" said Bai. "The cognitive buffs are working!" Dana detected that Bai was happy, and played a big smile animation.

  From downstairs I heard a chilling sound: the Xbox Forever was booting up. Et tu, Jenny?

  I jumped down the stairs. "Beer's in the fridge," I called back to Bai.

  In the living room, Jenny was nowhere to be seen. Bizarro Kate and two more of Jenny's friends were unfolding my old dancing-game pad.

  "Hey!" said Bizarro Kate. "I remembered you had Super Slide Dance Challenge, so we switched the TV cables. Hope that's okay. We didn't touch your Constellation system."

  Blog post, June 28, late night

  Well, the cookout was terrible. Jenny got angry at me because of something I said to Bai, but we worked it out while throwing beer bottles into the recycling dumpster, and then she helped me clean up the nonrecyclable trash and we relaxed in the living room.

  "I really hope that was the last cookout," I said. I was playing a game on the Brain Embryo.

  "I don't know what cookout you were at," said Jenny. "The one we had here was fine. Bizarro Kate and Martin finally hooked up. They left together, anyway."

  "That's a chilling thought," I said. "I can already see their kids running around in lit
tle polo shirts and catgirl ears."

  "People had a good time," said Jenny.

  "I wanted to show them the Brain Embryo," I said. "But I was busy with emergencies and you guys didn't want to put in a little effort to figure things out."

  "It's a party," said Jenny. "Not a time for strenuous mental effort. Here, lemme try it now." I left the Brain Embryo console and went to the bathroom.

  "I like the art," said Jenny when I came back. "It's like playing a Kandinsky."

  "You're not moving your guy," I said. "You're just looking around and the background's scrolling."

  "Let me figure it out, pendejo," said Jenny. "Not everything has to work immediately. Any docs on this thing?"

  "Uh, it's called Sayable Spice. Apparently it shatters the taboos of Dhihe Coastal Coalition society, though I don't know what those might be. It's got a skewed histogram—that was a good idea you had."

  "Okay," said Jenny. "Let's do this one."

  "What? We're doing it now."

  "Let's port it. It looks nice, it's a good game that a few people didn't like because it was controversial. Sounds like a good choice."

  "It was controversial to another species ninety million years ago," I said. "I'm still going through the list."

  "The list has fifteen thousand games on it," said Jenny. "And then there's all the other systems you could be exploring. Curic said you could spend the rest of your life playing these games, and I would like to start getting paychecks before then. That means at some point making a decision and starting work. So let's do this."

  "What if there's something wrong with Sayable Spice?"

  "Yeah, there probably is. You know how I complain about my web design clients?"

  "How you give them exactly what they ask for, and then they change their minds. Which is what I want to avoid."

  "That's part of the process," said Jenny. "You build something, and then you find out it sucks, and you use that information build something else. The only way to avoid this problem is to never get started and never get paid."

  "Okay," I said, "the decision is made." Crispy Duck Games is porting Sayable Spice. (Offer subject to change.)

  * * *

  Chapter 8: They Came For Our Twinkies

  Blog post, June 29

  Woo hoo! Thank you, Charlene Siph! Constellation citizens are now being issued US tourist visas!

  ABlum: i'm filling out paperwork for your visa

  i need to know if you're a "person of good character"

  * * *

  Curic: I sure hope not.

  * * *

  ABlum: i'm going to put down "yes"

  I have to fill out the forms twice for Curic, because the government considers a Farang's differentiated mind to be two different people in the same body. With that attitude, I don't know how they're ever going to get Constellation Library service down here. And I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy who has to sort out the paperwork for Her.

  Blogging will be light for a few days. I'm working on a project for a friend. Also for money.

  Real life, July 4

  We all got into Bai's SUV and drove through traffic to the Constellation landing site; me and Jenny and Jenny's nephew Eduardo, who was more interested in seeing a real spaceship land than in meeting a space alien.

  "Is Curic going to fit in the car?" said Jenny. "Physically? Have we checked?"

  Bai looked back at Jenny and backed the car out of my unused driveway. "Durrr, we're not idiots, Jenny," he said. (Bai's douchebag tendencies rise to the surface when he gets nervous.) "Farang are hobbit size. She can sit on your lap."

  "Not on my lap," said Jenny.

  The road to the landing site was still packed and the approach full of rubberneckers, but after showing Curic's ticket to the guards we were able to park. The first thing we saw was National Guard soldiers loading packages into a temporary structure. This was what we got now instead of drop-shipments. Packages came down on the shuttles, they went through customs and were delivered by UPS. The Guard was mostly there to keep people out of the structure. This allows the population at large to avoid thinking about the Constellation dropping rocks on us.

  We saw Curic's shuttle land and I signed her out at the immigration desk. Curic looked like the Farang picture on Wikipedia: short, heavy black-dark-purple fur, scary parrot beak and antennacles around the mouth. She doesn't smell bad, if you don't mind the smell of fur. (For the record, I look exactly like the dude on the Wikipedia page for "Human".)

  But one thing I hadn't expected was the way she walked. Curic waddled out of the holding area and made every CGI alien ever created look fake doing it. She moved like a real thing, not like a motion capture.

  "She's gorgeous," said Jenny.

  "That's not the word I'd use," I said, "but I see where you're coming from. What Jenny saw was that Curic was real. This was really happening.

  As we left the immigration Quonset hut, Curic took out the prosthetic tongue that lets her speak human languages and made a noise at the customs official. It sounded like "K'chua!"

  Then she told me: "I have important scientific equipment for you." We went to the temporary structure and signed out eight wooden crates with the Constellation Shipping logo stenciled on them. The crates were full of computers and game systems, which in turn were full of moon dust and nanomolecular machines.

  "You think you brought enough stuff, bro?" said Bai, having decided that being male half the time was enough to qualify as "bro."

  "This may be the only delivery you get for a long time," said Curic ominously.

  You don't see a lot of these crates in real life, but they looked exactly like the generic wooden crates that have been lying around first-person shooter maps for the past twenty years. Bai and I carried one of the largest crates together, and by mutual agreement set it down halfway to the car. We watched tiny Curic hustle past us, clasping a crate to her chest that was as big as she was.

  "How can you carry these?" I called out. Eduardo ran around in the grass chasing dragonflies, ignoring the space alien.

  "Are you kidding?" said Curic. "It's like half gravity here."

  With the prosthetic in her mouth, Curic had an awesome oozy squeaky European type accent, like a movie villain high on helium. I thought it was awesome, anyway, but I can see how TV producers might not like it. So most Farang use the Oyln-English translator, or if their English is really good they just use the vocalizer. This works out very well because the vocalizer has George Clooney's voice—much more mediagenic.

  By the time we'd loaded the SUV, the Texas morning was in full effect. I wiped my brow and just smeared the sweat around.

  "Curic," said Bai, oblivious to the heat. "I want you to meet my girlfriend, Dana Light."

  "Can we meet Dana in the car?" I said. But Bai had already slid his phone out of his pocket.

  Curic took the phone. "Hello, Dana Light," she said, more to the phone than to the person on the screen. I looked over Curic's shoulder—her whole body, actually. Dana was sitting on her fake couch typing on her fake tablet, writing in her fake blog about her semi-fake feelings. She didn't notice Curic.

  "Hey, I'm greeting you!" said Curic. Dana looked up but didn't say anything. "By human standards, your sexual partner is quite rude," said Curic, making to hand back the phone.

  "Probably the face recognition doesn't work on Farang," I said.

  Curic snatched the phone back. "Your sexual partner is implemented in software?" she said. Curic shook the phone as though she expected a tiny Dana to fall out. "Is it self-aware?"

  "That's a disputed question," I said.

  "Does your relationship enjoy legal sanction?"

  "No," said Bai, "'cause of prejudice."

  Jenny cracked her door open. "What's the holdup?" she said.

  "My own curiosity, I'm afraid," said Curic. She handed Dana back to Bai. "Let's take cover before we all die of heatstroke."

  We escaped into the car, where Jenny had the AC running. We all sat squeezed
into our seats, our feet propped up on the smaller crates, Curic sitting atop a crate despite Eduardo's offer to share a seatbelt.

  "Hey, Curic," said Jenny, "Eddie wants to be an astronaut."

  "Isn't he a little young to have fully-formed desires about future societal roles?" said Curic, peering suspiciously at Eduardo. Eduardo is taller than Curic.

  "He's a kid who wants to be an astronaut," said Jenny. "It's cute."

  "I'm an astronaut, said Curic. "It's not cute."

  "It is cute," said Jenny.

  "Curic, what was that you said to the immigration guy?" I said. Bai backed us out of the parking space and honked at some rubberneckers.

  Curic took her tongue out again. "K'chua!" she said.

  "Yeah, what's it mean?"

  The prosthetic went back in. "It's a Nuk word. That's an Auslander language that's good for bringing down curses. The closest English translation might be 'fuck the system.'"

  "That's very punk," I said.

  "Don't swear in front of Eddie," said Jenny. "My sister is gonna think I taught him that."

  "What, 'K'chua!'?" said Bai.

  "The other one!"

  "It's not the best translation," Curic continued oblivious, "because when you say 'fuck the system' you're addressing another person. 'K'chua' is something you say to the system."

  A car pulled out of the parking lot behind us. "Are we being followed?" I said.

  Curic squirmed to look between the huge crates in the cargo hold. "We had better not be," she said. And we weren't.

  Once we got underway, sophisticated Jenny asked the same stupid question I'd asked when I first met Curic. "So, Curic, boy or girl?"

  "What?" said Curic, unsure if Jenny was even talking to her. "I am both boy and girl."

  "But not at the same time, right?" said Bai. "Are we talking to the boy Curic or the girl Curic?"