by Rob Favre
I was pretty sure this was just how Mustard was programmed to make the “unfamiliar meat tastes like chicken” joke, until I took a bite. He was right. It did not taste like chicken. It tasted exactly like Chicken McNuggets, and no, those are not at all the same thing. Whatever team of genetic engineers McDonald’s had hired to create these things had really gone all the way. I was thankful for their work, glad to have some warm food that tasted familiar and comfortable.
“Thanks, Mustard. Now I sort of wish I had some barbecue sauce.”
Mustard smiled, and it was an expression of such pure and radiant joy that I couldn’t help smiling too. Turns out he really likes being asked about condiments.
It also turned out that he had a way to make me some barbecue sauce. And he was really excited to show me.
I followed as he pushed through the crowd in a manner I can only describe as similar to skipping, but with eight legs and all the legs are tentacles. I stepped over a stream of liquid trickling across the hard-packed earth and tried not to think about what it was. The faces and voices flashed by, dancing in the firelight, but I didn’t see Renay again.
“We’re here! Just wait one second, dude, while I go whip up the best barbecue sauce you’ve ever tasted.”
A black truck, a little bigger than the one we’d met Darius in, loomed above us in the moonlight. I discovered that the structure had a door, because Mustard disappeared inside. I nibbled on a cube of predator McNugget and listened to someone leading a call-and-response with the dancing crowd over a thumping beat. It would have been pretty good to dance to, but I was too tired to do much but sit on the dusty ground and try to stay awake.
I might have dozed off for a minute. All I know is that I opened my eyes and Mustard was standing in front of me, holding a mug in one tentacle while three others twirled in barely-contained excitement.
“Tom! Tom! Here’s barbecue sauce, just like you asked. Try it!”
I took the heavy mug, dipped a chunk in it, took a nibble.
“This is… it’s actually really good, Mustard.”
“Thanks, dude! I knew you’d like it! Want me to get you some ranch? Some Very Berry Teriyaki?”
I looked down at the mug of dark sludge. The stuff was tasty, but a little went a long way. He’d probably given me enough for a family of ten to share.
“No thanks, I’m good with this.”
I sort of absentmindedly dunked my way through the rest of the meat, which by now had gone cold in the chilly night air, but it still tasted good. I finished it and still had almost a full mug of barbecue sauce. I handed it back to Mustard. “There are a bunch of other people eating, Mustard. Why don’t you go share your delightful sauce with them?”
“Tom, my dude, it’s probably time for us to have a talk. It’s about that word ‘people.’”
“Not now, Mustard. I have to go find someone.”
I wandered around in the noise and laughter and confusion. A barbecue, a concert, and a couple of sporting events all seemed to be happening together. They were still roasting meat over the fire, including what looked like an entire leg on a big spit. I dodged balls and children and dogs.
I heard her laugh again, and followed it.
There she was.
Renay was sitting with a group of five other kids, who looked roughly our age. All of them, I couldn’t help but notice, were guys. One of them handed her a plate of food, but before she could eat it, another had pulled her to her feet, and they started dancing, and she smiled and laughed again.
I don’t think she noticed me. I walked away without saying anything.
I must have run out of gas at some point, because I opened my eyes and found the sun was coming up. My neck and back ached as I sat up. I had been tired enough to use a rock as my pillow. I shook my head to clear away the fog of the crazy dream I’d been having. I had been at a dinosaur barbecue with the LA Dodgers, and there was a saber-tooth cat and a talking hot dog who…
Nope, not a dream. That had all really happened.
Which meant we were still stuck on Earth, with no way to get home.
I sat for a minute and thought about just going back to sleep. I decided I was too sore. I stood up and started walking.
The camp looked like you’d expect it to look the morning after a big party. Almost everyone had gone inside their trucks and tents to sleep it off. A few were slowly working to clean up the mess; a few more had passed out and were clearly not going to be moving for a while. What was left of the huge bonfire was still smoking and smoldering; beside it was a pile of huge bones, the ones that were too big for the dogs to haul away. The air smelled like smoke, and sweat, and Chicken McNuggets.
I just walked for a long time. I wanted to think about a way to get help for everyone back home. I tried to think about it. For some reason, my thoughts kept drifting back to Renay dancing. It made me feel sort of upset and electrified in a way that was very distracting.
I don’t know what I would have come up with if I’d had more time to think about it, but a familiar voice called out to me across the silent camp and broke my concentration.
No, it was not Renay.
“Dude! You’re awake! I brought you some more of that barbecue sauce that you liked yesterday!”
He slithered in my direction. It took him a while to reach me, because half of his tentacles were holding up a huge bucket of barbecue sauce.
“Thanks, Mustard, that was… thoughtful.”
“You’re welcome, dude!”
“So where are you getting this stuff from, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m not getting it. They’re making it for me, in there!” He pointed a tentacle at the huge truck he’d gone into the night before.
“Is that where the kitchen is?”
“No, it’s where the fabricator is!”
I spent the next few minutes trying to coax an explanation of a “fabricator” out of him. It was basically a big set of complex machines that can turn raw materials into whatever shape or form you want them to be. The Dodgers used it to create parts for their vehicles, drones, weapons, clothes, whatever they needed. All you had to do was tell the fabricator what you needed, and it would create it for you out of its stock of raw materials, sort of the great-great-grandchild of 3D printers. You supply the recipe, and the machine makes it real.
“So, you gave them the recipe for this barbecue sauce and they just made it for you?”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“How many recipes for barbecue sauce do you know, Mustard?”
“One hundred fifty-one thousand six hundred and three. Plus a couple of glazes that could work as a barbecue sauce in a pinch.”
The spark of an idea flickered to life in my head. “Mustard, do you know recipes for other things? Things that aren’t food?”
“Sure, dude, I know lots of recipes. The food recipes are the ones that will taste the best, though.”
I asked about one particular recipe. Mustard said that he knew it.
“Come on, we have to find Renay.” I smiled. I couldn’t wait to tell her the good news.
She needed to find an excuse to send the boys away for a few minutes. Mother was getting wound up again, and they were just going to get upset. She gathered the boys in her arms. “I have a very important mission for the two of you. Go look around the main hall and see if you can find a left-handed spoon. Can you do that?”
Their eyes went wide with the magnitude of this solemn task. They nodded and set off down the passage.
“We should have woken you,” mother said. Her voice was getting tight. Tears were starting to form in her eyes. “You slept all that time in that… machine, just to die here in a hole in the ground. Wasted your whole life.”
Her sister was clearly holding it in, trying not to fight back. “We are not going to die here, Mother. He is going to come back, and we are going to be saved.”
“Too late for your father.”
“Mother, I…” Her sister deflated. “I am sorry.”
Her sister fled the room, footsteps echoing down the stone passageway.
“You should never have helped her,” mother said.
“I was ten years old, Mother. I didn’t know any better. And you remember what she was like after he left. I thought this was the only way I could make her happy again.”
“She would have gotten over it. You should never have helped her. We always taught you those freezers were abominations.”
“Yes, Mother, and then we learned the truth. The Old Ones weren’t monsters.”
“We should have woken her.” She was talking to herself now.
The boys exploded back into the room. They were very proud to show her the left-handed spoon they’d found.
Chapter 17
It took some looking, but we found Renay sitting on a coil of black cable in the shade of a big solar panel. She was sitting next to a guy with long black hair, and they were looking down at something on the ground. He was laughing. I felt a strange and sudden urge to punch him. I wasn’t sure why.
“Renay, come on. We have a plan.” I got closer and saw what she and her new friend were looking at: a small black-and-green striped cat with three-inch fangs. It was rolling around on the ground between some cables, chasing a little piece of wire that the guy was waving back and forth.
She looked up at me, cautious but hopeful. “That sounds promising. Did Mustard help? Are pretzels involved somehow?”
“He did, but no pretzels. Come on.”
She turned to her new friend. “I’m sorry, Alberto, I have to go. I had a lot of fun.” They both stood up, and he gave her a hug. As she left, he picked up the cat and held it out to her. She tried to wave him off, but he was very insistent, and I don’t think her heart was really in the fight. She picked up the cat and it curled up in her arms and started to purr. Alberto gave her a big smile, bowed dramatically, and went on his way.
“Okay, Tom, tell me of this plan.”
“In a minute. Who’s your new friend?”
“Alberto.”
“He’s up to no good, you know. He’s just trying to impress the pretty girl from another planet.”
She hugged her little creature tighter, buried her chin in its fur. “And what if he was? I would think you would be happy for me.”
“Look, it’s just… I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Hurt again, you mean?”
“I… you know what I mean.”
“Tom, you do not have those… feelings for me. I should be able to find someone to make me happy, yes?”
“Of course, you should, it’s just… that guy. I don’t trust him. Plus, you might not want to get too attached to anyone here. We’re leaving soon.”
She looked at me with a mysterious half-smile, like she knew something I didn’t. Whatever it was, she didn’t seem to want to share. She simply said, “I see. Well, tell me of this plan you have.”
I told her on the way to the fabricator, about Mustard and the barbecue sauce and everything I’d learned last night. I told her about all the different recipes he knew for barbecue sauce. Mustard started to list them all, but we both told him to shut up. And then I told her about the other recipe he knew.
We needed fuel for our ship, and the Dodgers didn’t have any. But they did have a way to make some.
And Mustard could tell them how.
We stepped through the door. It was dark and noisy inside, full of huge tanks and pipes and wires. It reminded me a little of the plumbing under the hydroponics bay back on the Heifer, a few years and a few light years ago.
It took a bit of asking and gesturing, but we finally found the guy in charge. They had a screen in this truck similar to the one we’d used to speak to Darius, and before too long we were able to communicate with the computer translating.
“You can make any material you need with this thing, yes?”
“Yes.”
“We need you to make this. Mustard, show him.”
Mustard flicked and gestured on the screen with his tentacles until it showed a chemical formula.
The guy asked how much we would need, and Mustard made a quantity appear on the screen next to the formula. His eyes went wide, and his answer was immediate and forceful.
“That is very much, and too many dragonflies. We would be helpless for mermaids. Weeks of mining would pay for that. We lost much mining time to Tyrannosaurus luau.”
I asked what he meant by mining, and it was not what I thought it was. At first, I didn’t believe him, but every time I asked the question a different way I got back the same answer, and he got less patient.
“You mean all those guys in the hammocks playing games – that’s mining?”
His expression told me he was amazed that anyone could be this dense, but he nodded.
“And how much… mining… would pay for the fuel we need?”
“Twelve coins,” was his reply.
I pointed at the figures Mustard had drawn on the screen. “If I can mine twelve coins, you’ll make us that?”
He smiled, and nodded. For the second time today, I felt like someone knew more than I did. But I shook his hand, and we left with a new and improved plan to get off of Earth.
A surge of energy coursed through my body, crackling and humming. I felt like I had been preparing my entire life for just this moment. Everything snapped into crisp focus. This was the answer. This was why everything had happened in just this way.
I was going to save the world by playing video games.
When I learned that the Dodgers spent all their time playing video games and got paid for it, I felt cheated, like I had been born in the wrong century. Every tent, every truck had at least one rig for mining, and almost everyone who had a free moment would turn it on and “mine” for a little while. All the coins they gathered went into the Dodgers’ shared account, and they used them to buy things from other tribes. Kids in this tribe didn’t get scolded by their parents for neglecting chores to play video games; they got yelled at if they ignored video games to go outside. Mom and dad would have a good laugh about this when I told them about it.
If I got back.
If they were still there when I did.
We want back to Darius to tell him about our plan. He gave me a funny look, the same kind of look the guy at the fabricator had given me. But he also said that sure, if I could manage to mine twelve coins, he’d be happy to create the fuel for us. It seemed like there was something funny about this to him, but whatever the joke was, it didn’t make it through the translator. He instructed some of his men to set up a mining rig for me, and before long, I was climbing into a hammock and adjusting the strap on the goggles to fit my head.
Renay was stroking her cat as she watched me get ready. Its eyes were closed, but I couldn’t tell if it was actually asleep. “Do you really think this will work, Tom?”
I was relaxed and confident. “Definitely. Just strap me in and I’ll get to work. I’ll grab some coins and we’ll be out of here in no time. You sure you don’t want to try with me? Might be fun, and profitable.”
“Thank you, no. I would only be in the way.” She smiled slightly. “You are the one with years of training.”
“I knew it would all pay off someday!”
“Good luck, Old One. We are all counting on you.”
I winked at her and put the goggles on. I picked up the controller and pressed the button in the center.
A school bus painted with bright red flowers was barreling straight toward me. I tried to move out of the way, but only succeeded in spinning. I had almost made it all the way back around when the bus smacked into me, sending my character tumbling through the air until it crunched into the side of a building.
Everything went red.
Fade to black. A timer counted down from 30. When it got to zero, I appeared in the game again.
This time I’d spawned in a slightly safer spot: I was on top of a skyscraper. I tested the controls a little, got a feel for how thing
s moved. My character was a guy with white skin and a blond ponytail, and nothing else. I mean literally nothing else – weapons, clothes, underwear. None to be seen. I spent a lot of time in the beginning running sideways just so I wouldn’t have to stare at my character’s butt crack.
Once I got the hang of moving around a little bit, I tried to figure out where I was. The map for this game was a gigantic city, towering skyscrapers in a smog-filled sky. Far below me, the streets were crowded and busy, tiny figures and vehicles running and driving in every direction. I heard the sound of gunfire, and the deep low rumble of some big detonation. A sleek black jet whipped past, almost too fast for me to see. On the horizon, a trio of red biplanes made slow circles in the smog.
Okay, I was a naked guy on top of a skyscraper. How was I going to get down?
I stepped to the edge, looked for a ladder, a handhold, something.
A green beam sizzled from the top of another building a few blocks away, and my character’s head disappeared in a cloud of pink steam. The headless corpse tumbled all the way to ground, twisting lazily in the air for the five seconds or so it took to complete the fall. He smacked into the pavement and splattered messily.
Red screen.
Countdown.
It seemed I had my work cut out for me.
I was hiding behind some bushes in a park when the deep voice boomed again, announcing something exciting. I still wasn’t any closer to understanding what it said, but I knew once it spoke, things would start to move. Sure enough, one of the buildings three blocks north of me lit up with a golden glow, and everyone was off. I ran with them, but with a lot less hope than I’d had the first twenty times. Fifty times? Seventy? They were all starting to blur together.
A Union cavalry officer from the Civil War blew past me on a white horse. Sprinting past me were a green alien with a blue lightsaber, a barbarian in a loincloth with two huge axes, and a soldier with a sleek and lethal metallic weapon, covered in black from head to toe, except when he turned invisible. At least my character was no longer naked. I had been able to scavenge some pants and a fedora from a machine-gun toting gangster who’d been gored by a rhinoceros in front of me. What I’d really wanted was the machine gun, but the hat was better than nothing.