“You clear on the controls?” Sasha said to Aygylaana as he handed her the key.

“This lever adjusts the gear ratio between the output shaft of the engine and the rear wheels and is generally only used when the clutch, the pedal on the left, is depressed. The pedal on the right controls the speed of the engine. The gauge labeled RPM is the engine speed and the one labeled MPH is the vehicle speed. The buttons around the gauges control the visibility lights and rain wipers,” she looked between her feet, “The dangley pedal in the middle is not needed and therefore not important.”

“Exactly right,” Sasha said, opening a bottle of vodka and a copy of Linux Today magazine, “Before you start the ignition, care for a relaxant?”

“Not particularly,” she said, starting the ignition and driving a total distance of three feet before stalling out the car.

“You know where you fucked up at, yeah?”

“Give it,” she said, snatching the bottle and drinking at least a third of it before starting the car again and speeding out of the yard, making the little Japanese engine beg for mercy.

“Show that motherfucker Geo who the head bitch is!” Sasha said as Aygylaana took a long swig as soon as she was on the main road.

“Fuck you, Japan!” the alien said over the roaring Isuzu engine, “When do I shift?”

“When it sounds like it’s spinning faster than it can fire!” Sasha said, “Slam into second now!”

Back at Sasha’s house, Evelyn had brewed a fresh pot of coffee and Yarelli was waking up, licking and smacking her dry mouth.

“What happened?”

“Sasha brought you here, asked you to make his alien girlfriend legal, pissed me off, grabbed a case of vodka and his keys, and started teaching her how to drive a sports car.”

“I hope the vodka was for their gas tank!” Yarelli said before holding a hand to her head, “Ow.”

“I gotcha,” Evelyn said, bringing a cup of coffee and a small bag of ice to her, “I’m sure it’s gonna all go in his excuse for a stomach before she can get any.”

“Hopefully she’s behind the wheel,” Yarelli said, “The alien was the green one, right?”

“Yeah,” Evelyn said, showing Yarelli a picture of the girl, “Do you need something to make notes in?”

“That might help,” the agent said, looking around herself as Evelyn went to get an empty notebook and pen.

“I’ll need some basic information,” Yarelli said, starting to write down everything she’d need to bullshit some paperwork, “Name, date of birth, country of origin, the basic stuff.”

“Aygylaana, but I don’t trust that G,” Evelyn said, “Date of birth, I’m not sure. She sounds like she’s from North Asia, so Russia? Maybe Korea or Mongolia?”

“I’ll ask you guys about that later. Can you text me the picture?”

“Government phone?”

“Personal,” Yarelli said, “You and I could get federal time for this, Sasha could get deported back to Moscow, she’d be dissected, and we would all end up in a living hell.”

“That’s deep.”

“Best if we keep this on the down-low. Does Sasha have a printer?”

“The only one I know of is either in his apartment or the garage,” Evelyn said, looking to the computer on the counter, “I haven’t seen one yet, but he’s got two networks ran in his house. One is in the studio apartment in the basement and the other is for up here. He could have one in the Datacave or in the workroom.”

“Do you think the computer down here would be connected to it?”

“It’s possible,” Evelyn said, plugging Yarelli’s phone into the computer and opening the image file and looking for a printer, “It looks like he has one upstairs!”

“I’ll pay him back for the ink,” Yarelli said, printing the picture at the best quality the printer could, “Listen!”

“Upstairs!” Evelyn said as they both hurried to the hallway.

“It’s in here,” Yarelli said as Evelyn tried to open the door.

“No luck. It’s locked.”

“I grew up in a house like this,” Yarelli said, “Do you have a screwdriver or a knife?”

Within moments, they were in a darkened room, illuminated only by a lighted computer case, a few monitors in sleep mode, and the LCD screen on the printer.

“He’s done nicely,” Yarelli said as a tower fan turned on and began oscillating.

“I’ve only been in here once,” Evelyn said, getting the print as carefully as she could and heading back down with the homeland agent, “When he was moving into this house.”

“Alright, she has a first name, picture, possible place of origin, and nothing else.”

“How about Buryatia?” Evelyn said, “I have a friend who did a two-semester exchange program for our eleventh grade.”

“Do you know what city he was from?”

“I think it was Red Ude or something,” she said, loading up Google on the computer at the counter, “It was the capitol city.”

“Ulan-Ude, Buryat ASSR, USSR,” Yarelli said, “Can she speak Mongolian, Buryat, or Russian?”

“I don’t think so, but she can already speak decent English, and this is only her second day here. Sasha mentioned something about a language assimilation thing she does.”

“Call Sasha.”

In Sasha’s sports car, both Sasha and Aygylaana reeked of alcohol. The A/C was running on its coldest setting and the engine sounded like it was starting to misfire as Sasha’s phone rang.

“Hello,” he said, “Staniel, Weinstock, Race Man.”

“Pull your vodka-filled ass together and listen to me!” Evelyn said, “Yarelli is getting information for Aygylaana’s papers and license and- where are you?”

“Heading south on Main at… 98 miles per hour in third gear. Why?”

“Who’s driving and how much to drink have you or she had?”

“She is and she’s halfway through her third bottle,” Sasha said as Aygylaana blared the horn, rolled down the window, and yelled some obscenity as Sasha looked to her, “You’re doing good sweetie. Next time, aim for the middle of the backbone; that’ll teach ‘em,” he focused on the call again, “What do you need?”

“How many people has she killed!?”

“I won’t know until I look at the prop and body.”

“Oh God,” Evelyn said, feeling sick to her stomach, “Yarelli needed to get her name, birthday, a place she came from, and probably some Visa documents too.”

“Where do you have her from now?”

“We’re going with Ulan-Ude in Buryatia. When Bughu Khatagi speaks English, I think that’s the closest match to her speech that’s believable.”

“Some of her consonants are Korean all the way, the rest Mongol, and every vowel is either East Slavic or Mongol. For once, you’re actually right about linguistics.

“How does she spell her name?”

“Aygylaana Odunovna Chabykina. It’s spelled different than how she pronounces it. What sounds almost like a K is actually a G. I’ll text you the spelling in a few.”

“Birthdate?”

“When were you born, Sexy Overlord?”

“Julian or Gregorian?”

“Gregorian.”

“October 25, 1999.”

“Did you get that?”

“October what, 1999?”

“25.”

“Alright. Can she speak Mongolian?”

“I doubt it.”

“She needs to learn Mongolian.”

“I know the place, but you may not see us for the rest of the day. Yarelli’s stuff is back at VE.”

“Okay?”

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

“Alright,” Sasha said, “Tell Bughu Khatagi that Dr Buryakov said hello in Communist.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes, “Fine,” she said, ending the call.

“Pull over,” Sasha said, pocketing his phone, “I’m driving us now.”

“Did I fail?” Aygylaana said, eventually bringing the car to a stop in a bank’s parking lot.

“Nope,” he said as they swapped seats, “I’m driving to Mongolia.”

“This does not work underwater, no?”

“I have a plan and did you fuck with my seat?”

“It was in an incorrect position for me.”

“Nevermind that,” Sasha said, starting the car and heading to the North-South route.

“Why are you driving us to Mongolia?”

“To learn Mongolian.”

“I have to piss.”

“Right here,” Sasha said, handing her an empty vodka bottle, “Throw it out the window when you’re through.”

Aygylaana quickly positioned herself over the bottle and filled it with an inky-black liquid before throwing the mess out of the car window, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sasha said, “You want anything on the way?”

Eventually, Sasha made it onto the mainland headed to Pennsylvania at speeds that made his Geo scream, even in the higher gears, should he decide to ever use them.

“Do you think that someone would be made angry for my urine and glass smashing their window?”

“Bitch’ll get over it if she didn’t die on impact,” Sasha said, “Now, while I could just let you learn Russian or Mongolian from me, there’s something wrong with either of the two. Firstly, I’m not hearing the East-Slavic in your accent, so if you just started speaking Russian to someone who gets suspicious, we could get found out. I know that the timing belt on this engine is more capable as a leader than most of Washington, but there’s still a few people in there who’ve gone abroad. As for me and the Mongol language, I’ve never went too deep in it, but I know enough to pull key things from a set of data, should it not be in Russian. When Eve’s friend from Ulan-Ude came over from Buryatia, he almost never spoke Buryat or Mongolian. The two are close enough that if you learn one, you can pretty much speak in the other with little issue.”

As they passed a sign that read Welcome to Little Mongolia in Mongolian, Aygylaana immediately wondered what the difference was between that and Russian if they were written out the same way.

The landscapes and design language of America gave way to a style that was almost distinctly from Ulaanbaatar. The chaotic streets were crowded with a variety of cars that fell into one of two categories: stuff from Russia and Asian boxes that used little to no gas. The general lack of street signs made navigation difficult for anyone who didn’t navigate by landmark and Sasha was convinced that half of the people paid a bribe for their license.

Still, it was close enough to Mongolia that it could create something passable for anyone who might put Aygylaana’s speech up to scrutiny.

“Where are we going?” Aygylaana asked as Sasha briefly went off-roading on the corner of Od Square.

“The only place worth visiting in Little Mongolia,” Sasha said, getting back on the road and turning speeding up, “A café.”

“You have those in your town.”

“Yeah, but they don’t speak Mongol.”

“Fair point.”

Eventually, Sasha sped into a parking lot labeled Kafye Mongolya in Mongolian Cyrillic and let the engine run for a moment before killing it and going in with Aygylaana.

«Hello, Dr Buryakov! Welcome to Café Mongolia! What can I get for you today?» a female Gobi Bear said in Mongolian.

“I don’t know that much Mongolian. Also, who are you?”

“I’m sorry, my name is Maa Sokhataiyn. I’ve been following your work and you made me want to go into psychology. I read that you were a linguist and-”

“It’s okay,” Sasha said, “If I come to Little Mongolia and stay for a week, I’ll be able to move to Ulaanbaatar and speak the language. Actually, I was wondering if Khorihilemunaisi is working today.”

“He is,” Maa said, hurrying to the back, “Have yourselves a seat!”

“You did not mention you had a cult following,” Aygylaana said as they sat down at a table.

“Believe me when I say I didn’t know,” Sasha said, grabbing a menu, “I’m gonna get something to drink. You thirsty?”

“This place smells funny. Do they have beer?”

“They have vodka.”

“I will take it.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Sasha looked over the Mongolian menu to try to find Airag and Vodka. The first wasn’t hard to find because the name of the Mongolian drink the same in both Mongolian and Russian, but he had to think for a moment to find the Mongolian vodka.

“Arkhi,” he said, looking at Aygylaana, “In the ‘Soviets are Great’ club, we just say ‘vodka’. In the land of more horses than people,” he showed her the menu, “They say this.”

“Perhaps you are right.”

«Sasha! Been a while, man! How’ve you been?» a man said in Russian.

He was a Mongolian Wild Horse with a pale brown coat and dark brown hair. He was a few inches shorter than Aygylaana, had green eyes, a white stripe running the height of his muzzle, and wore a shirt with the Soyombo symbol on it, blue jeans, and horseshoes.

«I’m good. Have a seat, there’s something I need to ask, and I know before I say it that it’s gonna be crazy as fuck,» Sasha said, continuing the conversation in Russian.

«You’re not a virgin anymore?» he said, laughing.

Sasha glared at him for a few moments before speaking.

«Khorihilemunaisi, I may have a black eye, but I know how to give you a damn-good shiner too. Watch your fucking mouth. But yeah, in all seriousness, I’m not a virgin anymore.»

«Wait, seriously? Is she the lucky girl?»

«She is, but here’s the deal. She came here from another planet, and her speech sounds very Mongolian, at least in the vowels. I think half of her consonants are closer to the Korean ones, but that’s just me. Anyway, here’s the deal: she’s getting papers that say she’s from Ulan-Ude in Buryat ASSR, not Mongolia. I think Eve had something to do with that, but I’m not gonna press the issue. After everything is settled and done with, she would need to be able to speak Mongolian to make this airtight, otherwise I get sent back to the ‘Communism is Great’ club, she gets dissected, and federal time is handed out like hotcakes. I was hoping you’d let her probe your brain and learn Mongolian.»

«Let me get this straight. You want me to let her into my brain, completely unsupervised, and let her meddle around until she knows how to speak Mongolian?»

«Yes.»

«No deal.»

«Be reasonable about this for a minute. She did the same thing to me so she could learn English and teach me her language at the same time. I’m fine, minus where Eve punched me when I psychoanalyzed her, but that’ll be healed in a week and she’ll still be wanting to crawl back into her mom in ten years’ time.»

“Is he serious?” Khorihilemunaisi asked Aygylaana in rough English.

“You cannot have him,” she replied, shaking her head.

«I promise you’ll be okay. While she’s doing it, you’ll be a quadriplegic, but it’s more like your limbs go to sleep than it is being fully paralyzed from the neck down.»

«How long does it take?»

«When she learned English and taught me her language, it took several minutes, but then again, it was two language transfers with no similarities on how their logic is organized. Since she’s just learning the Mongolian language, I’d say two or three minutes plus however long it takes her to get to the language center of your brain. Would that work?»

«Sure. We can do it in the break room. The employees generally take their breaks out here.»

“Wanna learn Russian in the bedroom?” Sasha asked Aygylaana in English as they headed to the back room and Khorihilemunaisi sat down at the table.

«Are you ready for my Sexy Space Dragon to do her thing?»

The Mongolian nodded as Sasha motioned for her to go over to him.

As soon as his limbs were paralyzed, he looked to Sasha, unsure of what he was supposed to be experiencing.

«Don’t worry. You think she’s turning your mind into her playground, but it just feels that way when there’s two people in a one-person room.»

«I’m just worried that I can’t move.»

After a few minutes, Aygylaana came off of the Mongolian and looked at Sasha, then Khorihilemunaisi as he began moving his limbs again.

«I hear Sasha speak Russian approximately half of the time. Why is the Mongolian language written in a similar script to Russian if the two sound so different?» she asked in Mongolian.

«Ask Sasha,» Khorihilemunaisi said in Mongolian as his limbs began to stop buzzing, «He’ll know.»

As Sasha and Aygylaana went back out to their table, they considered going somewhere else for drinks, but decided against it. Café Mongolia was a place Sasha liked to hit up whenever he was in Pennsylvania and Aygylaana didn’t wanna have to scout out more vodka if they ran out in the car.

“What can I get you today?” Maa said in English, coming back over to them.

“I’ll have a glass of Airag,” Sasha said.

“Is your vodka from Mongolia or Russia?” Aygylaana said, “I want that.”

“It is just regular vodka.”

“I would like that then.”

“We’ll bring it out to you soon,” Maa said, heading back to the kitchen.

“Mongolian is not a language originating from the Russian language. Why are they written with similar scripts?”

“Russia and communism,” Sasha said, “Originally, they used the traditional Mongolian script, then they invented other scripts including the Soyombo script before switching to a Latin-style alphabet in the ‘30s that… didn’t quite work out well, so they went back to the Traditional Script. In the 40s, thanks to Soviet-style Communism, we get Mongolian Cyrillic. Just glossing over everything, there’s already eight different ways of writing the Mongolian language. Personally, I’d prefer the Soyombo script for whatever reason or the Cyrillic script because Russian already uses it.”

“Bullshit,” Aygylaana said, drumming her slimy fingers on the table and propping her head up with her other hand, “Although I must say that it was fortunate you could read it.”

“Who knows what would’ve happened if I’d done something stupid like use Google Translate while I was driving?” he said, “Especially when I was drinking, kissing you, and racing simultaneously at over a hundred.”

Aygylaana looked out at the messed-up body of the car outside, “You may need to tap out a dent.”

“And get a new fender. I think I lost mine on the bridge.”

“Piece of shit.”

“The body is shit, the engine is fun and buzzy. It’s a trade-off. Originally, though, I wanted to find a Conquest instead of an Isuzu, but it’s just as fun to drive.”

“Would you change your decision if you could?”

“Eh, not particularly. The Conquest sucks on fuel mileage. The Geo, on the other hand, can go from sporty to practical depending on how I drive it.”

“What, if I may ask, is the point of having so many of them?”

“Sometimes, you just wanna have fun, because you find something that’s from an older time period and is incredibly easy to work on, despite being a veritable piece of shit,” Sasha explained, “In short, it’s a hobby.”

“Strange hobby.”

“Some people like cars, some people like music, some people like sex. Believe me when I say that there are some complete maniacs out there.”

Aygylaana let herself get caught up in her own thoughts for a moment as Maa brought their drinks to them.

“Would you like anything else?”

“No thank you.”

“Alright then,” she said, going back to the counter.

“What is Airag?”

“Fermented mare’s milk, though most places serve it made from cow’s milk. It’s nowhere near as strong as vodka, but it’s worth driving this far north for it in my opinion.”

“There are some drinks from Egna that I think you might enjoy,” Aygylaana said, “Maybe I could make them for you when we get high again.”

Back at Sasha’s house, Yarelli was stumbling to Evelyn’s car, holding a thermos of coffee.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive back?” Evelyn asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Yarelli said as the tiger pulled the car out of the driveway, “Now, I have a picture, a name that we don’t know how to spell, a country of origin, birthdate, and nothing else.”

“If this piece of shit can make it across town, then maybe I can find some notes of Sasha’s at the warehouse.”

As the aging Chrysler puttered on and gave its protests, Evelyn and Yarelli tried to make Aygylaana’s existence as legal as possible.

“Do we know how good the Russians are at keeping records?” Yarelli asked.

“When you say keeping records, what do you mean?”

“Birth records.”

“I think that’s only in Russia Proper,” Evelyn said, “Buryatia is a part of Russia and it’s own separate thing at the same time.”

“That’s great,” Yarelli said as Evelyn got on the bypass and headed to the warehouse.

“At least he’s got the tech there to hack into a computer in Soviet Russia completely undetected.”

Eventually, they made it to the warehouse, thankfully, in one piece.

“Hate that thing,” Evelyn said, going inside with Yarelli, “Keeps breaking down.”

“Just get a new one,” Yarelli said, getting a drink out of the refrigerator.

“Sasha’s supposed to go to Russia in the summer,” Evelyn said, “I think after his plane takes off, I’m gonna go sign off on a Scion or a new Dodge Neon.”

“Why wait?” Yarelli said, “If it’s money, I can just have Homeland put a bonus on your check.”

“It’s not the money, the money’s fine. It’s Sasha. I’ll get a new car to replace my Dodge Neon. He’ll say he could’ve fixed it, and he probably can, but I want something new so I don’t have to look for a belt here or a plug there or scower junkyards when my air conditioning goes out.”

“You like Ford?”

“They’re okay.”

“Look at a Ford Focus.”

“Alright,” Eve said, trying to get into Sasha’s computer, “I don’t know if I can do this, honestly.”

“What do you mean?” Yarelli asked.

“It’s all in Russian,” Eve said as the desktop loaded, “I can’t speak Communism.”

“So that’s it, you’re done?”

“Not quite,” Evelyn said, pulling a laptop out of her desk and turning it on, “But I am about to do something that could start World War III.”

“If you’re about to commit an act of war then stop right there!” Yarelli said, “The Cold War only ended in 1991.”

“America, Russia, and China are constantly hacking and spying on each other. Sasha’s been a part of that game on-and-off for a while, I’ve never played into it, and I’m sure your boss has told you different things, but this isn’t about America, this is about Sasha having our asses.”

“I can’t stop you if I don’t know you’re doing it,” Yarelli said, going and making a cup of coffee, “Tell me when to come back in the room.”

“Can’t hack like Sasha,” Evelyn muttered, reaching for her phone.

Sasha: English/Russian (Latin) - Aygylaana Odunovna Chabykina

Sasha: Russian/Mongolian (Cyrillic) - Айгылаана Одуновна Чабыкина

Sasha: Mongolian (Latin) - Aigylaana Odunovna Chabykina

Evelyn: Can you tell me how to make Aygylaana’s birth records look real to the head commies?

Sasha: Are you having her born in the Russian Republic or the Buryat ASSR?

Evelyn: We settled on Ulan-Ude in Buryatia

Sasha: Download some forms from ‘99, they can be templates or real papers, it doesn’t matter as long as you can type on it. They’ll almost CERTAINLY be in Mongolian, which uses Cyrillic in everywhere but China, so you can just use Crowd Translate to figure out the fields for name, DOB, sex, species. If I’m not back by tonight, I have a program on my computer that’ll backdate everything to the point that forensics won’t be able to tell it’s fabricated. The program is called Задним Числом, just set it to whatever you decided Aygylaana’s birthday is and upload those files. The Central Gov’t in Moscow will eventually see them, think they overlooked it, and translate it to Russian for you. No sweat, just keep me in the fucking loop, okay, slut?

“I’m gonna kill that motherfucker,” Evelyn said, working on creating the files.

Eventually, after taking things slowly, she had the forms filled out to make the alien exist, but still not legally.

“If Sasha has the connections he says he does, why doesn’t he just rub some people in DC and in Moscow?” Evelyn asked, dropping a folder of papers on the kitchen table before making a cup of coffee, “He’s got the manipulation down pat.”

“The seventy-two hours that we had Sasha in custody,” Yarelli said, getting Evelyn’s attention, “I saw the world he lives in, and it wasn’t pretty. I learned everything I could about it and him, but I still don’t know anything.”

“What are you getting at?” Evelyn asked, sitting down and sipping on her coffee, “He’s an incredibly condescending, arrogant, egotistical, and several other choice words, genius who starts kitchen fires from reheating leftover pizza in the microwave. I grew up with him and there’s nothing there that gives him any kind of excuse for what he does. If I’m being honest with you, I don’t even know why I tolerate it,” she rubbed her face, “But I’m probably desensitized. What did you learn?”

“You’re really serious about being desensitized to him?”

“I grew up in the same house as he did, so I don’t even notice some of his underhanded plays anymore. Even the big ones.”

“Well,” Yarelli said, “When we had him in custody, he didn’t ever do anything for himself unless it was something nobody else could figure out. Sure, he was curious, but he was a kid. Run-of-the-mill stuff. We actually found out he wasn’t technically a citizen until 2008 because the paperwork didn’t go through properly. He doesn’t think like we do, so he may not even know when he’s being a condescending jackass. I actually think that the only reason he wants us to do this, and I know that he could go to Little Mongolia and come back within a day if he tried, it’s only in Pennsylvania, is to see if we’re worth keeping alive.”

“You really feel threatened by him?” Evelyn said in disbelief.

“He could affect millions of people in a few moments if he wanted to. I’m not taking any chances with him.”

“That’s probably a good thing. He isn’t the kind of person you cross and get away with it.”

“When I saw the world he lives in, it almost seemed crazy, but it wasn’t. You’re a gamer, right?”

“I like a good shooting game.”

“Sasha lives in a world that’s like those games, but with all of the info layers on.”

“I don’t know if he’s as much of a risk taker as I thought,” Evelyn said as a realization hit her like a rock.

“When an eight-year-old can accurately calculate when a tire will burst down to the second, you know from then on that they’re not normal.”

“Honestly, when Mom found Sasha, I think she was hoping for a normal boy, not a young version of the blue-haired dude from that show.”

Yarelli glanced over the papers, “Everything looks like it’s in order. I guess all we have to do is wait until Sasha gets back.”

“Definitely,” Evelyn said, “I don’t know how to type on a keyboard that has any amount of Russian on it.”

“Wanna take a break?” Yarelli asked.

“Shooting range in Brooksburrow sound good?”

“You just read my mind,” Yarelli said as they both headed out to her SUV, leaving the folder and a note on Sasha’s desk.