“I don’t get it,” Pea said. She was starting to think that should be her motto from now on. “If I can leave this, this Dollhouse or Sandcastle or whatever it is, and go on a bloody rampage across your precious game, why can’t Junebug?”
Matt had the grace to look somewhat abashed. As usual, the effect was ruined by his bill.
“It’s one of those things that just doesn’t really work anymore since the ARC was split up,” he explained. “Sandboxes were supposed to be places where players could create new Items, but in order to take an Item out of the Sandbox and into the proper ARcade they needed the ARC to approve it. So you couldn’t just go into a Sandbox and make a dozen incredible Ships for yourself, or an Item that spits out Units on command.”
Aditi had finally given up her angry charade and flopped onto the brown velvet beside Pea. She started picking at the ragged ends of the missing chunk of couch. Pea glanced up and realized Junebug was no longer in sight. There was a swooping feeling in her stomach as the escape pod was once again eased into a stationary position.
Even though it was distraught, isolated by silence, and probably confused beyond belief, the alien child was still trying to take care of them.
“The ARC would evaluate the Item and make sure it would fit into the general economy or whatever,” Aditi took up the explanation. “The only thing that didn’t need evaluation was basic skins, which is when you essentially recolor something to look different, but the Item, or the player, remains the same underneath. You can still make those. Aside from that, nothing new has been made in the ARcade for about 40 years. It’s all just the same stuff, recycled over and over.”
“OK, I get it. I think I get it. But…” Pea kept her eyes fixed on the dome and sure enough, Junebug slowly crept back into sight. Of course it did. Where else could the little ship go? Apparently they were in the galactic equivalent of a closet, and Junebug was stuck in it.
“What should we tell Junebug? You obviously don’t think we should let it know about all this, but we can’t shut it out much longer. It’s cruel. Besides, if Junebug gets upset enough it will punch through the communication channel anyway. I’m surprised it hasn’t already.”
Pea realized as she spoke that calling Junebug ‘it’ no longer felt effortless. Maybe Junebug thought of itself as an it, and she respected that, but the connotations suddenly made the companion feel very uncomfortable. She wondered whether the Quentith encouraged their children to keep to those pronouns just in case they interacted with outsiders, or if it was natural for them to call a child it until it went through puberty, or metamorphosis or whatever coming-of-age ritual biology demanded of them.
Aditi grimaced. “I… actually have no idea. I just acted on instinct when Matt was going on and on about how Junebug wasn’t real.” She shrugged, making the lights on her braids twinkle merrily. “I’m really, really not supposed to talk about this information with any Quenti children, or anyone else for that matter, but… I trust neither of you are going to reveal it to humans in power who might try to take advantage. And Junebug isn’t going to be talking to her own kind any time soon.”
Matt jumped up and strode away from them. Pea wondered if he was angry about being called out, until he turned and started pacing around the couches. His face (or at least the upper part of it) was clenched with emotion, but it wasn’t anger.
“This is… this is disgusting. It shouldn’t be possible. This could happen to anyone who’s been uploaded into the system!” He paused for a second, then resumed his pacing. “We need to report it.”
“It can’t though,” Aditi said. “It only happened like this because Quenti kids are labeled as Items, specifically to protect this secret. And I’ve never seen a Quenti child by itself before, let alone in a place that human players can access.” She shook her head. “Yes, it’s something that needs to be addressed but I don’t think one incident in 40 years is going to make anyone panic.”
“We need to make sure no one else comes in here,” Matt said, his brain turning on a dime as if he hadn’t heard Aditi. His pacing stopped so suddenly it was like he walked into an invisible wall. “If Junebug is an uploaded person and someone unethical got in here they could…”
He glanced at Pea. Pea suspected that she looked as nauseated as she felt because he trailed off and didn’t finish the sentence.
“It’s forever,” he said. “It has no body. It will just be here, a living being that can suffer, with no power or control, forever.”
Pea had been trying to take in the information slowly, sipping at it like scalding water, but Matt pried open her mind and poured all the steaming misery in at once. The only thing that kept her in her seat was the knowledge that there was nowhere on the ship to throw up.
She breathed deeply, swallowing down the saliva that had rushed to her mouth and fervently regretted scarfing down all that salami. She searched herself for that rage that seemed such a constant companion. Rage that could burn hotter than misery.
And there it was. Someone unethical.
Junebug would be alright, as long as they protected it. Pea didn’t want to think about Junebug being at some arsehole’s mercy, but imagining some corporate or government prick deciding to experiment on a helpless child provided the white hot clarity and focus that she needed right now.
“Junebug already knows that we’re in a game, or a simulation or whatever,” Pea said.
“We figured it out when we asked Pod- the escape pod computer- to tell us about the ARcade. It mentioned that the Quentith live in a different galaxy.” Pea let the gears in her own head spin as she tried to image how Junebug would react if they told it the whole truth. It had been so upset when it realized they were in a game. It seemed to miss its parents. Although, on the other hand, it had also referred to Pea as Mother within a few hours, so…
“I don’t think Junebug knows enough about human stuff to really understand Items and what that means. It didn’t even seem to understand that humans were animals, or that animals and plants were different things,” Pea had barely had any time to talk to the creature. She scoured her mind for every little clue she could remember. “It wanted to go home, though. I can’t imagine we could prevent it from trying to leave without telling it the truth. It’s probably better to do it now when it’s still not really sure about things, and then as it learns more the information won’t be as gut wrenching.” She shrugged and felt her body droop as if she’d been running a marathon.
Aditi sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes with her hands. “OK, well, I guess we’ll tell Junebug the truth then. A very gentle version of the truth.”
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Before Pea realized what she was doing, she blurted out, “I’ll do it.”
Why the heck did I volunteer to do that? She cursed herself, but somehow she didn’t retract her offer.
Aditi nodded. “It’s known you the longest. Do you know what to say?”
“Tell it we’re all here for it,” Matt insisted. He hurried back around the couches to grip Pea’s hand and it was all she could do not to immediately pull away from him. Why was this game so pointlessly detailed? Did she really need to fully experience the clammy, webbed fingers of a platypus to have fun here?
His round, black eyes were shinier than usual, so Pea managed to keep her hand still.
“Tell Junebug we’re going to make this the best Sandbox in the whole ARcade. We’ll make sure it’s full of things that Quentith like.” He hesitated and then looked at Aditi. “What do they like?”
“They like being able to participate in conversations,” Pea said pointedly. She pulled back her hand and looked up through the dome.
“Pod, please reconnect us with Junebug.”
The alien child did not take the news well.
Pea attempted to be gentle but straightforward. Even without Aditi’s prompting, the companion knew not to mention that Junebug had been cut off from the conversation earlier on purpose. It was going to need to trust them.
Junebug confirmed again in a voice shot through with guilt that it had been caught up in the battle that Pea barely remembered.
Aditi interrupted the conversation at this point to explain that players had set off Items that disrupted Ship abilities. These were probably what left Junebug, nominally a Ship, adrift in the battlefield, blind and helpless. It was lucky it hadn’t been destroyed by a stray torpedo.
Once the Sandbox was opened and the servers went down, all intact Ships were returned to their registered home docks.
Of course, Junebug had no registered home dock in Celestial because it wasn’t from Celestial, it was from the Quentith sub-cade, which had refused to join the general docking register for their own reasons. Because of course they had.
They had most likely retrieved the original Junebug- Child of Delights in Iridium Pudding- at some point after the servers were restored, and kept their mouths shut about the whole incident.
Pea drank in the new information about the battle along with Junebug. Was it him who opened the Sandbox? Was he trying to save himself, or to save Pea?
Or to do something else entirely?
Matt, who jumped in to elaborate on the details of the battle, spoke of whoever created the Sandbox with some awe in his voice, as if opening it was a Big Deal.
The two players might have kept talking forever, comparing theories on what happened, speculating on wormholes and sharing anecdotes they had collected from other players, if Pea hadn’t interrupted them.
“Junebug, honey, do you need to eat?”
The lack of commentary from the coppery alien worried Pea. It seemed to be pressing against the pod like it was in need of comfort, rather than so it could see them better.
How did you comfort something so big?
“What about sleep? Or… anything else? You can talk to us, Junebug. We’re going to help you as much as we can.”
“I consumed some of the… the debris,” Junebug said.
It’s voice, normally so bright and bubbly, was subdued to the point of dullness. “I have had all the metals I need. All the energy.”
It paused and then added, as if talking to itself. “If I even need them. Maybe I don’t. Maybe it’s all a lie.”
“What can I do for you, Junebug?” Pea asked, keeping her voice steady. She had expected the little ship to rage, because that’s what she would have done. What she had done.
She didn’t know how to help it when it just seemed… sad. If sadness could be an agony, that was what the alien child had threading through its voice.
“I’m so lonely,” Junebug said, after a long pause. “I… I know I’m almost an Older, but… I’m never going to be with my Mother again. It’s… it’s unbearable.”
The voice cracked.
Aditi winced and put a hand on Pea’s arm. The companion started at the unexpected touch. She had been staring straight overhead, with her fists clenched, trying to think of what to say. How could she be a Mother?
Any attempt was doomed from the start.
Aditi spoke in a low voice, although Pea suspected that Junebug was so wrapped up in misery it wouldn’t have heard anything Aditi said.
“Quentith have a very, very different lifecycle to us,” Aditi whispered.
“No, really?” Pea said, sarcasm dripping from each word.
Aditi squeezed her arm harder and shook it slightly. Matt, his bug eyes shiny with useless tears, stepped closer to them so he could hear better.
“Listen to me,” Aditi demanded in a harsh voice. “I’m trying to explain how we could help Junebug. Quentith Olders don’t look all that different from Children on the outside. The metamorphosis to reach that stage is mostly internal. Then, when they reach full maturity, after years as an Older, they decide what kind of child they will make, and they secrete a cocoon. Except, the cocoon is the child. The Older inside the child’s body is now a Mother, and they look like what humans think all Quentith look like.”
“Those giant grub things,” Matt supplied helpfully then snapped his bill shut as if he’d said something insulting.
Aditi nodded in agreement.
“Ironically, yes. The Mothers look somewhat similar to certain types of larvae on Earth. The point is that the Mother then lives in the child for years, nurturing it, guiding it, keeping it safe until it becomes an Older and the cavity inside it closes up.”
“So if Junebug is close to being an Older,” Pea said slowly, trying to assimilate yet more bizarre information. “…but isn’t one yet, it still has a… cavity?”
Pea struggled to control her face at the visions that term conjured up. Something inside your body that wasn’t food, that wasn’t a lover, that wasn’t a parasite… her human brain did not easily accept the idea.
At least until she pictured a pregnant woman, and then it snapped somewhat into focus. Still… it was weird.
“It most likely does. I… I know I sound like an expert in comparison to most humans, but I only know the broad details. From what I can tell, Junebug might be in a kind of weening stage. It’s Mother would spend short periods away from the cavity to prepare Junebug for eventually being alone. But the poor thing isn’t quite at that stage yet.”
“My Mother never left me for more than a single flight before now,” Junebug said.
So it had been listening after all. Pea realized she needed to be extremely careful about what she said aloud from then on.
“And my fathers were always talking to me, until I went to the human battle. Why did I do it?”
It moaned, long and sharp, a terrible whale-song wail. Pea felt tears spring to her eyes even as she fought the urge to cover her ears.
“So should we… can we go in there?”
It was the last thing Pea wanted to do. She was having a difficult enough time imagining her body in a goopy Matrix coffin, let alone wallowing in whatever the hell was inside an alien baby.
For some reason, though, her mouth kept talking.
“Could I go into where your Mother would be, Junebug? Would that help?”
The moan stopped abruptly. The lumpy, coppery body overhead shifted slightly as if properly focusing on Pea again.
“Yes,” Junebug said finally, its voice low but charged with a vitality that had been absent ever since learning its fate. “Please, can you try? It doesn’t have to be my own Mother, I’ve hosted other Mothers before.” Blue dots of light filled the space under the dome as the alien scraped against the shield. “I just feel so empty without her,” Junebug whispered. “I can’t bear it.”
“This is freakin’ weird,” Matt mumbled under his breath.
Pea agreed whole-heartedly but didn’t want Junebug to hear. The idea was so… disgusting. There was no way around it. She had been vaguely labeling Junebug as a Ship, simply because it was Ship-sized and floating around in space. That didn’t mean she wanted to wander around its insides.
Still, she had to comfort the child somehow.
“OK, who wants to go?” She said, feeling absurdly guilty for even trying to get out of it. Even as she said it, the others turned to look at her without hesitating.
Aditi shook her head.
“Pea, it has to be you.”