“Just stay down,” the distorted voice whispered. Something about it sounded soft. This person didn’t seem to want to hurt him, yet, whoever they were. If they did then he might have died already.
Suddenly, one of the armed assailants rammed into the one who was pointing their pistol at Dylan, and he fell backward with the same person, the both of them smashing through another glass door with a loud bang. There was blood, and the masked weirdo somehow got off of Dylan in a blurred instant. Everything spun and went cloudy.
As he got up, the store took on a decidedly orange hue and obnoxious level of brightness. Two of those masked creeps were gone, but one remained, trying to reach the vehicle. The remaining individual had a crimson trail behind them for a few feet.
Finally the store clerk was visible. They were on the ground with a pool of blood below them. Flames were reaching them. There was one person remaining that Dylan could hope to save now, so he limped to the one crawling and reaching for the large object Dylan had realized was a spaceship.
“No time. Everything . . . to explode . . .” Their voice became clearer despite also growing more pained.
Dylan reached down and made every attempt to help this stranger up. The mask had fallen off, but he couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face.
“Just do it,” he said.
Something pinched Dylan’s side as the other man rolled his head back. Then everything jolted, turned red and white, and then to nothing.
* * *
Present Day
Captain Druvvin paced back and forth behind his office desk. A frown accompanied his face as he considered the whole report that Tong-Chang had provided along with Zoey’s new testimony.
Meanwhile, Zoi’ne couldn’t help but feel nervous. How was the man of undeniable authority going to treat the news that something so alien, by Zoey’s reckoning, was at a convenience store on a lesser developed planet?
“This revelation reeks,” the captain said after a long silence. “It’s enough that our own technology landed so close to primitive hands, if you will excuse my phrasing. It’s worse that unknown materials requiring this case might have been involved in your side of the recent Matter Transference incident. Now you three tell me that one extra case is on our ship with no sign of registry. Furthermore, the odds of this revelation coming to light would have been reduced, perhaps non-existent, had the box full of palisticks not been misplaced in the last twenty-four hours.”
She never did get to enjoy that bag of Funyuns, either.
The captain said, “I can’t even take solace here, as I no longer know if my own ship and crew might have contributed to making this incident happen. I can, however, hope that the first cryogenic case and its contents were destroyed utterly, or that this is somehow the same one delivered into our serendipitous custody. Either way would prevent a real disaster for your home planet, as well as for us. Ensign, you have done well to report this to me before touching the case. Miss Wilde, I commend you for bringing a fuller testimony before me. We will examine this case momentarily, and you’re otherwise free to go.”
“Thank you, sir,” Zoey said.
“I ask that you do not pry into this unless you can remember anything else that might help. Most especially, do not repeat this to my communications officer. He has been revising our journeys into grand adventures with puns for titles, and I can see the man calling our whole trip ‘The Wilde Mystery.’ Now, if we are done here, I will need a scalding hot shower after saying that.”
“When you are next available, sir, might I have a word regarding my legal name?”
“Perhaps. I have a long list of duties to look over and sign off on, all while taking the helm of this ship. Don’t be afraid to ask this young man’s parents, since they too are captains, or the admiral if he is not too busy. Now then, you are all excused.”
It was a moment later, when the trio returned to the corridor leading away from the bridge, that Zoey picked up their conversation. “They’re captains?” she asked.
Das said, “One of them retired recently, but yes.”
“What was that like, growing up under them?”
“If you take a class on contemporary military or trade history, you will reach an entire chapter about a negotiation that was going sour until a married couple took over the hailing frequencies with one of the most asinine arguments ever, and how that one quarrel resulted in the entire dispute being resolved. All I can say is that I am so sorry.”
* * *
Dasos led Zoi’ne into the guest quarters where he and his folks were staying for this trip. She had told him that she had nothing else planned for today, and now she stood at the entrance looking uncertain about something that Dasos couldn’t read from looking at her, alone.
“Come on in,” he said, “it’s fine. I’m sure we have something here to pass the time that you might like.”
Zoi’ne said, “That’s nice of you. I just . . . I don’t know.”
“Well, if anything’s wrong, I hope you are able to trust me enough to let me know. I like to think we’ve befriended one another in this short time.”
In his attempt to look in Zoey’s eyes and be sincere, Dasos felt again like he was talking to his long lost sister. But that was what Il’lyse was – lost. He looked away and considered what he was even doing for a second.
He said, “We have books, most of them digital. I don’t know how familiar you are with our lyurunics.”
“I don’t even know what that is,” Zoey said. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I’ve seen your alphabet, letters, or whatever you call your writing system.”
“Oh, OK. You do use a different word for it. I think. If we’re lucky then hopefully some of it will be familiar so your time will be a little easier. Let’s try something else, though.”
“What else have you got?”
“Do you have video games where you’re from?”
“You’re kidding, right? I almost grew up on video games if not for my uncle being against my having any game systems of my own. What kind of games do you have?”
“Good question. Let me see what ones my mom brought with her. I didn’t have time to pack any of my own.”
He turned to the monitor in the main room. It curved inward with the wall it was mounted within, and had a few simple buttons on the left side. Dasos held down the confirmation button and tapped the plus sign to fully activate the monitor. Then he navigated the options and found that his mother’s game data was missing, as were her movies and contact list, but her own information was in the temporary storage since she was still listed as an active user.
Das hoped that she wasn’t too busy, wherever she was, and then selected the option to call her from the monitor. A trio of chimes sounded once, a second time, a third time, and then cut off halfway through a fourth when the sound of air followed.
“Hello?” his mother’s voice said. She didn’t bother with the video this time.
“Hello, Mom,” he said. He glanced at Zoey to see her face and measure her reaction to this level of technology. She looked pleased and accepting of it from what little he could tell, but in no way did she appear to have her mind blown.
“What’s up, Dasos?”
“I’m showing Zoey around, and was hoping to find one of your games since I didn’t bring any of mine.”
“Who’s Zoey?” Oh, right. His mom didn’t know yet.
Zoey said, “It’s me, Dylan. I decided on Zoi’ne for my new name.”
“Already?”
“I’ll also need something done to make that my official name instead of some alias or whatever you want to call it.”
“That has a certain level of permanence. We can talk more about this in a couple hours. We’re at the ship’s Recreation Hall finishing another game, and then I’m treating Aerak to a Daxin-Ginserei massage since they happen to offer it here, and the man has yet to try it.”
Das heard his father muttering, “Will you please stop trying to kill me?”
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“Oh, live a little, my love.”
The banter made Zoey giggle silently. She clearly had no idea what it was like to live with these two for so many years, not that it was bad when at least one was home and the other able to call from their spaceship. As new as it was to her, it was a sort of constant that no one fully adapted to without going mad and joining in on it.
“In any case,” said Dasos’s mom, Bon’sinne, “I can send one of my game files over. The permission will last you both more than plenty of time for us to get over there after we’re done here. Wait, Zoi’ne was it? Hold on a second.”
Their voices could be heard on the other end of the call, but hardly any of the words got through with any clarity. The pause was brief, however.
“How would you like to join us all for dinner tonight?” Bon’sinne asked. “Aerak tells me he feels like cooking, so I asked him if he minded company being over. He’d actually be happy to cook for one more, if you’ll join us. Plus it’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better.”
“That sounds wonderful, thank you,” Zoi’ne said.
“Great. I’ll hang up now, but I’m sending something over right away. I hope you both like it.”
As soon as the temporary game file began to copy over, making it good for about a day before needing another permission or else a more direct link to the source, Dasos recognized the title that hovered over the progress bar at the bottom of the screen. It somehow didn’t surprise him that his mother had such a recent game release.
“What’s Crash of Jovians III?” Zoey asked.
Das said, “It’s only one of the most over-the-top series of fighting games. We’re on a spaceship, and we’re about to throw planetoids and relatively smaller ships at one another. Way to go, Mom.”
“Wait a minute. How do you have ‘Jovian’ in your language?”
“Huh?”
[ 05]
It took a while for Zoey to learn the controls in this game well enough to last a solid minute or longer against Das’ithrios during every match. She wasn’t as practiced as he was with the characters or environmental effects, but this game was the most fun Zoey could recall having for some time.
At one point, she managed to beat him, and Das denied ever dropping his guard or losing on purpose. Yet, it was what she needed to build herself up and try harder since she knew that beating him was possible. It was doable.
Comparably, the graphics on this game were better than what Zoey had seen on Earth, but not by a lot. Another generation or two of game consoles, from the time that she left, would have caught up to what she was seeing on the monitor. At the same time, she wasn’t sure that the medium needed any more improvement when it came to that area.
“So how advanced are these games, anyways?” Zoi’ne asked.
“What do you mean?” Das said.
“How can I put this? The video quality is amazing, better than humans have on Earth, but it doesn’t look more than ten or twelve years ahead.”
“It’s probably the diminished returns on pixels and polygons. Our game companies peaked a couple centuries ago on those, and decided to focus on stability, fluidity, and the actual content itself. Then companies proceeded to come and go as long as they could afford to be in the business.”
“That sounds better than how things were going when I left home. Are your games sold in their entirety, or are they broken up with pieces locked behind pay walls?”
“They’ve been whole and complete for close to three hundred revolutions that I know of. I only heard bits and pieces about what happened, but maybe Mom can tell you more. I mean my mom. She took a course in technological history for post-space expansion, pre-alliance. Come to think of it Tonny might have as well. One of us would have to ask her.”
“Cool, I might do that. History is one of my favorite subjects.” Zoey and Das nodded as they finished and started another match. The match was nearly over when she leaned in closer to Das. “So who or what was Jove?”
* * *
Zoey volunteered to help by putting plates on the dining table since she felt that it was the least she could to show her generosity for being here with the family. The utensils were basically the same that she grew up with on Earth, with the biggest difference being how the fork had three prongs instead of four and the soup spoons looking more like miniature ladles with curved, plastic handles.
She didn’t know yet know how Aelfs, or anyone else in this society, displayed the utensils, so Zoey imitated what she remembered from her old life: napkin to the left of the plate with the fork on top of it, knife to the immediate right of the plate, the main spoon next, and then the soup spoon on the farthest to the right. Hopefully this setup would be inoffensive to her hosts, but something told her they wouldn’t mind as long as it worked.
Meanwhile, Das was suffering mostly defeats against his mother at that fighting game. Zoey could picture Bon’sinne beating the members of her crew at anything that Zoey could think of, and still look like the winner when the rarity came that she lost. The woman had pride without arrogance, it seemed. Bon’sinne made other people a part of her world, with all of her triumphs that Zoey had yet to fully realize, but she never gloated or held her victories over Dasos. No, she did her best to welcome Dasos into her world, and Zoey felt like Bon’sinne would do the same for her, or anyone.
Keft’aerak was a man immersed in his own little world when cooking required his attention, and very much like the family was his world when he had the time for it. That was the impression Zoey had gotten from him. She was uncertain if she’d seen many people like that on Earth, but she was curious how many people there were in this space-aged society that made their hobbies their world. Given how masterful he was at the kitchen area, at least, it was hardly any wonder that Keft’aerak could do the family life as well as he did.
He looked at Zoey and said, “It’s a funny thing, you know. Back when I was attending the university for its academy program most ships still hired on official chefs for the entire crew. You might have seen one or two security personnel around a captain or admiral, but a chef was guarded by two or three at any time.”
“That’s interesting,” Zoey said.
“I was schooling to become a communications officer when, in my third revolution, I was assigned to a ship called the Tyk Jarl where I befriended one of the last great chefs to serve that duty on an official level. She taught me so many things during my downtime, even quizzed me on it. As a prank she once sicked all three security guys on me the same day I was to try and make something for the whole crew.”
“Oh wow, what happened then?”
“She was told there wouldn’t be any security posted to protect her for about a week if she tried that stunt again. She called the captain’s bluff. Oh, and I was lucky that the good captain walked into the room when the security was on me, because the chef was apparently a known prankster, and the captain a formidable gambler that knew when a game was at play. Instead I was allowed to cook a full meal for the six of us, and the chef made more for the rest of the crew.”
“Amazing.”
“The captain told me, ‘Ensign Thalassas, you show some real talent at both communications and cooking, but I better not see you anywhere near my daughter.’”
“And then you married her,” chimed his wife.
“Yes, and every person who served as security on that ship attended the wedding.”
“What? They were basically my family.”
Zoi’ne laughed with one hand on her waist and another starting on her brow before dropping. She was not expecting to hear about family history like that, and yet she also had to admit that it was funny.
When the laughter passed, Zoey noticed that Keft’aerak tilted his head and was looking at her curiously. Then he turned back to the food and continued to stir the pans.
Moments later the food was served. Bon’sinne nodded at the arrangement of utensils. “I like this,” she said, “but no soup.”
“
Crap, I’m sorry,” Zoey said.
“It’s no problem, dear. I don’t mind since we’re learning about where you come from. This is how you do your eating implements on Earth, right?”
“In some regions, it’s the less formal arrangement. There are some social circles where they have ten to fifteen utensils, one for every bite-sized portion of a larger meal. It’s kind of odd whenever I think about that. Weirder still, they only use five to seven from the whole lot.”
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