Constellation Games

by Leonard Richardson

  "Sounds like something worth knowing."

  "Yeah, except the Constellation didn't actually do anything. The game is bullshit."

  "Says who? Someone from the Constellation?"

  "Oh, well, yeah. But I wouldn't have heard of this game in the first place, if it wasn't for Tetsuo."

  "So? Tetsuo slipped up."

  I was clinging to the plus-sign-shaped asteroid for dear life, but Ion still had some angular momentum going, and by this point in the conversation I was once again looking at her toenail polish. I scrambled to the other side of the astroid so I could look her in the eye.

  "That game was made fifty years into the contact mission," I said. "This one's been going six lousy weeks, and humans are already getting mad at the Constellation. 'What have they done for us?' Not a hell of a lot. Whose fault is that? I dunno. But people are pissed that the Constellation didn't come here with ready-made solutions to all our problems."

  "Why would they have solutions to our problems?" said Ion. "They don't even observe proper experimental controls. You would not believe how they treat my apparatus."

  "I'm saying you don't need a reason to be angry. You can just get angry and make a slanderous game. And then seventeen million years later, the BEA will use that game to feed the hysteria on Earth. Different planet, same problem."

  "Mmm," said Ion, looking at her clipboard. "Would you like to hear my secret way for dealing with these things?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Not thinking about it." She held out her empty, collapsed bulb. "Would you get me another industrial solvent?"

  After she'd finished her checklist and her second caipirinha, Ion Specialist pulled herself to the plus-sign-shaped asteroid and looked me over one more time, as if deciding whether she could trust me. "I have a question for you," she whispered. "Have you ever heard of a company called Constellation Shipping?"

  "It's not a company," I said. "It's just a logo they put on the boxes they send down to Earth. It's like a running joke."

  "Ariel the civilian, I have decided to show you something weird. Something I found in Utility Ring."

  "I'm from Austin," I said. "We'll look at anything weird."

  "That's good," said Ion Specialist conspiratorially, "because I'm from Akron, Ohio, and if we see something weird, we don't have many options other than starting a rock band."

  "I play drums a little."

  "Why don't I just show you."

  She showed me.

  * * *

  Chapter 14: The Wave Function Of The Universe

  Real Life, July 19

  I had a bed set up with the two bunkbed mattresses, and a pillow made from twenty-five identical shirts from the Repertoire. It was a nice system, but there was no nightstand, so when Jenny called, I had to roll onto the floor and feel around for the phone.

  "I am freaking unhappy!" said Jenny. "You haven't even looked at my concept art."

  "I... was asleep," I said.

  "It's nine-thirty," said Jenny.

  "Yeah, nine-thirty in Austin," I said.

  "Oh, did you tire yourself out floating around Ring City with your girlfriend?" snapped Jenny. "While I was busting my ass on Sayable Spice: Earth Remix."

  "Dammit. Jenny. Curic's not my girlfriend."

  "I'm not talking about Curic."

  "Oh." I let that hang there for a second. One of Smoke's subminds decided I wasn't going back to sleep, and turned on the room light.

  "I know your signals, Ariel," said Jenny, real proud of this, like I play 'em so close to the vest. "The cutesy pseudonym? Posting an innocuous conversation and friends-locking it? What did she 'show you' in Utility Ring?"

  "It was a shipping container," I said. "She didn't know about Constellation Shipping, so she freaked out when she found a shipping container in a space station orbiting the moon. I'll write about it when I— great, now my mother is calling. There goes sleep."

  "Oh, she calls right as I call?"

  "Hold on." I switched to the incoming call. "Hi, Ma."

  "Ariel, this is your mother."

  "Yeah, Ma, hi, what's up?"

  "I read your blog," said my mother. "Who is this Ion Specialist?"

  "She's... a woman... I met... on the space... station," I said, picking every word from a menu of generic-sounding words.

  "What's her real name? I want to look her up and make sure she's not one of the crazy astronauts."

  "Her name is Tammy, Ma. Doctor Tammy Miram."

  "Miram? Is there the tiniest possibility that that's a Jewish name?"

  "I don't think so, Ma. She's some kind of lapsed-Catholic Unitarian Buddhist."

  "Well, you know me, I don't care, as long as you're happy. Only, please tell me they sell rubbers in the bathrooms up there?"

  "Ma, every single assumption you made in that sentence is wrong."

  "Just tell your mother she doesn't have to worry."

  "We did nothing, Ma." I got up and took the conversation outside, to the infinite hallway.

  "Doesn't sound like a girl you want to do nothing with," said my mother.

  "We made out a little, okay? We made out in zero gravity behind a shipping container!" I shouted it out to everyone in Human Ring, which was nobody. "Are you happy now?"

  "That's a pretty cheap date, honey."

  "All right, Ma," I said, "you have officially crossed the line. I've got Jenny on hold, and I'm going to have her humiliate me about this instead of you."

  "Jenny, that poor girl."

  "Bye, Ma. Take care. Buh-bye now. I'm back."

  "Did you move?" said Jenny. "It looks different."

  "Yeah, I'm in the hallway now," I said. I held the camera lens away from me and waved the phone around. "Drink it in. Fuckin'... Kansas in space."

  "Well, after your nap, lover boy," said Jenny, "take a minute to look at the damn concept art. I like it and Bizarro Kate likes it, but maybe you think it's too anime-ey for a video game."

  "Maybe it is," I said, "but I'm not the art dictator. I hired you so we could get a division of labor. You should go with the style you're comfortable with."

  "That's sweet, except this game isn't about pachinko or time management, so our main audience is likely to be young men. Which means we might want more of a comic book look."

  I paced the cold black floor in my bare feet. "Guys like anime, too," I said. "The anime club in college was full of guys."

  "And at the time I calculated that that was about eighty percent wanting to look at tits."

  "So is comic books."

  "Nah," said Jenny. "Sixty percent, tops."

  "I need a break from Tetsuo," I said. "I'll look at the art tomorrow morning."

  Blog post, July 20

  GAME REVIEWS OF INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE 2.0 PRESENTS

  A Tower of Sand

  A game by Af be Hui

  Reviewed by Ariel Blum

  Publisher: The Perea Corporation

  Release date: Contact event plus 49 years

  Platforms: Simulates Hi-Def False Daylight, Dare To Greatness, Your Return

  ESRB rating: T for thematic elements, whatever that means

  "We need to find a game that makes the Constellation look good," I said.

  The urgency in my voice did not penetrate Tetsuo's sound-sensitive membranes. "Why would someone make a game about that?"

  "I'd make one myself," I said, "if I found out that people were spreading panic by creating Constellation assassination fantasies. And if we don't find something to cancel out Ev luie Aka's Ultimate DIY Lift-Off, I'll have have to make one myself, because you'll have right-wing militias blockading your consulate buildings."

  "Let them come!" said Tetsuo. "With their primitive maces and carving knives!"

  "No, they'll have guns."

  "Oh, that's a little worse," said Tetsuo. "I'm thinking." He rolled back and forth on his beanbag chair, hugging it beneath him like a body pillow.

  "Ideally it would be another game with 'Ultimate' in the title," I said.
"Fowler was very impressed by that."

  Tetsuo reached out a long, long forearm and waved a hand in front of my face. "You smell funny," he said.

  "Back atcha, pal."

  "Different from before. Hah, it's pheremones! You're covered in human pheremones! You're away from the females of Earth only one day, and you go into heat!"

  "You're smelling alcohol, genius. I had a drink. Is everything about sex with you?"

  "Only sexy things."

  "We need empathy," I said. "A tear-jerker. Sympathetic characters. Are there any Ip Shkoy games where you play an extraterrestrial?"

  "There are many," said Tetsuo. "In Grow you control an entire ring of Wazungu. It's very stylized; what used to be called an eat-and-shit game."

  "People don't like Wazungu; they look like rotten food."

  "I like them."

  "Humans don't like them, and you know it. That's why you made Charlene Siph the Constellation ambassador, instead of Bob the Mzungu."

  "Please do not call her that!" Tetsuo said. "We're all ambassadors. Charlene Siph is the fixer."

  "Can you find a game with a Farang player character? People think they're cute."

  "Certainly," said Tetsuo, staring into space. "Although I doubt such a game will change anyone's mind. Here's one with good reviews: A Tower of Sand."

  Now I waved my hand in front of Tetsuo's face. "Where are you getting these?"

  "The database, like as you," said Tetsuo. "Let's hit the store."

  "No! Spare me the store!" We went to the store.

  "Why did you recreate the whole damn store?" I asked Tetsuo. "All the software is behind your little bubble." Behind me in the rear of the store I heard constant splashes, as food packages were repeatedly drawn up a conveyor belt and dropped a good ten feet into a big tank of refrigerated water.

  "Buy something or get out!" Tetsuo yelled from the other side of the Plexiglass shield.

  Two could play at this game. "I want to do a trade-in," I said. From my pocket I pulled the Gewnoy Multislam box I'd found in the replica Ip Shkoy apartment. I waved it at Tetsuo.

  "Trade in?"

  "Gewnoy Multislam for credit against Tower of Sand."

  "Presumptious fool! You can only trade a newer game for an older game! A Tower of Sand was published a full solar year after Gewnoy Multislam."

  "You're making that up."

  "It is the policy of the store!"

  "Gewnoy Multislam doesn't even work."

  "Not my fault," said Tetsuo. "You should've bought two."

  "I'll tell everyone you sell faulty software. I have powerful friends, clerk dude!"

  Tetsuo changed his tune immediately. "You pay retail," he said, "and I'll enlarge your order to encompass one of these fine desperation items." He reached behind him with his tail and slapped a metal cage full of cheap squishy plastic against his side of the Plexiglass bubble.

  "Aah!" I said. The cage swung back and forth in front of my face. "All right, give me that horrible-looking mouth foam."

  "Hundred sixty, plus tip."

  "Is that what they said?" I asked Tetsuo once we left the role-play of the You Buy Now. "'You should have bought two' when you complained about something?"

  "Yes," said Tetsuo, "or else your expectations were too high. For happenstance, suppose you eat an Earth cake, and then you tell me 'Tetsuo! I wish I still had that cake!'"

  "Oh, actually in English we have a saying—"

  "I know that!"

  Back in the apartment, I unfolded the poster that came with the game, but as far as my eyes could tell, it was totally blank.

  "It is a game for two players," said Tetsuo, screwing a second abacus-organ controller into the top of the Tower of Sand data cylinder. "We portray a Farang named Koht. An expert in architecture."

  The poor False Daylight system looked like it would explode from having all this stuff attached to it, but I bravely took the second controller. "We're both Koht?"

  "I'm Koht when female," said Tetsuo, "and you are her crossself, the male. We trade off over the course of the day."

  Tetsuo started the game. An oval in the center of the projection showed a top-down view of Koht, while a split-screen behind the oval showed what I eventually realized were side views. Tetsuo started laying a line of triangular blocks on the ground.

  "You're building something," I said. "Perhaps a Tower of Sand?"

  "Yes, I build," said Tetsuo. "The story is that we create a sister-city to the space station. Farang will come down here to live, and meantimes Aliens populate the space station, as you do here on Ring City. It's a cultural exchange."

  "Did this actually happen?" I didn't want to get burned by another Ultimate Lift-Off fantasy.

  "Yes, it began when the creator of this game was young."

  "People were okay with it? Extraterrestrials coming and living on your home planet?"

  "Well, no one wants to live on a beach, with cliffs, am I right? It's not prime real estate."

  "I wouldn't mind having a beach house," I said.

  "But a human is you. Imagine living somewhere nobody wants to live."

  "The desert."

  "Yeah, the beach just is a wet desert. But Farang love beaches, so it's cool."

  A bolt of lightning shivered the screen and the background sounds became higher-pitched. Tetsuo worked his controller ineffectively.

  "It's your turn," said Tetsuo. "If we had some friends who also played this game, we could enchain our data cylinders and compete to attract the most visitors."

  "I'm going to knock down all your buildings," I cackled. I rammed Koht into one of the structures and knocked a few tiles loose.

  "No, undo, do not!" said Tetsuo. "It's unrealistic!"

  "I'm not the one who made Koht kiss a wall."

  "But that was funny," said Tetsuo. He put his forehands like antennacles in front of his wide mouth, and wiggled them around. "Blbblblt."

  I found another Farang walking around the beach and body-checked him/her. "No, that's someone who wants to live in my buildings! Bweeee! Leave him alone!"

  The projector went white and Pey Shkoy script appeared on the screen, then trickled downwards as if the characters had been carved out of sand. "You have lost us the game!" said Tetsou.

  "Why?"

  "You made Koht act crazy," said Tetsuo. "Ambivalent, dissociated in personality. His friends became concerned. It's on the poster."

  "I can't even see the ink on the poster," I said. "This sucks. I want to be player one."

  "Then be," said Tetsuo. We crawled around each other rather than messing with the controllers. I restarted the game and toddled along the beach, digging blocks out of the sand and stacking them precariously on each other.

  "Are there any Aliens in this game?" I asked.

  "Not at the start," said Tetsuo. "You'd have to build a harbor or a fun-fair to get Aliens to attend a beach."

  "How about other species?"

  "The poster expresses several Goyim," said Tetsuo, tracing its ultraviolet ink with a finger. "In the ocean." On the projector, lightning struck again. "Ah, my turn!" Tetsuo picked up his controller and twitched away.

  I'd left the game board full of piles of bricks, and deep holes in the sand. Tetsuo immediately resumed his old habits, piling up hollow pyramids and underground tunnels, juggling the camera viewpoints like a pro.

  The screen turned white again and displayed some kind of tabular information. "Bweeh, we failed!" said Tetsuo.

  "Why? You didn't kill anybody."

  "Our building styles were too divergent," said Tetsuo. "You and I, Ariel, we are not very good at forming a single Farang."

  The two players in A Tower of Sand chase each other creatively, each trying to put their stamp on the built environment while maintaining a single artistic style for Koht. It's not a cooperative game, exactly, but it's not one you can play with an uncooperative or unfriendly person. Try just once to really pull one over on your opponent, and the game's over.

  We got int
o the mechanics and after a couple of hours, we were able to complete a modest building that simulated people wanted to visit. Instead of digging more sand to add extensions and possibly screw the whole thing up, we spent a few turns walking around and greeting the sunbathing Farang, who gave off happy little Pey Shkoy emoticons.

  "All right," I said, "this is a decent game and I'll write it up, but here's what I'm concerned about. If you were a human, and I told you about this friendly little game, where Farang come down to the Alien homeworld to build houses in the desert and fun-fairs and shit, would you be more or less apprehensive about Ev luie Aka's Ultimate DIY Lift-Off?"

  "I'm not a human," said Tetsuo, "so if you want accuracy, you must answer that question yourself."

  But I can't.

  Real life, July 21

  "Okay! Yes! This is good, Ari. Now we move to stage three. Grab hold of the shipping container."

  "I can't reach. It's like ten feet away now."

  "What the hell! Where'd all this delta-vee come from?"

  "Maybe it's 'cause I took off my shoes back in stage one."

  "Well, you're never gonna see those shoes again, dude. Okay, hold on to me, yeah, and I'll use the kicker. Yeah, wow, just like that."

  "Ow! Shit!"

  "Sorry. Disengage! Abort! I'm holding on to your foot."

  "Man! Those suggestive docking sequences in sci-fi movies make it look so easy. Don't they teach you how to do this in astronaut training?"

  "No, they just tell you not to do it."

  "That's what they told us, in high school, but nobody listened."

  "Sorry we had to scrub the mission. Do you want to set up again? I need to be feeding planaria in the central cylinder in an hour. But we've got that hour."

  "I think we should go to my place and shower, and maybe pick up later."

  "Showering isn't sexy here, Ari, it's annoying. And you still look ready to me."

  "I mean an actual shower, with soap. When you get sweaty it kinda... reactivates all your accumulated sweat."