The cnidarian trees of the earth of the Quotidians, from Fellow Tetrapod. Pictured is what appears to be a branch of a maple tree, but on close inspection, the leaves look a bit puply and tentacular. They are in fact polyps, encased in a tough cuticle, able to withdraw into the glassy hollow stem. This is what the Zogreion has instead of trees [https://64.media.tumblr.com/fbd21bd9deaecf93fe471299c0d6f384/45ed974c244b189d-ce/s640x960/3ca1a529eb00027b773abec3d9357305c7e39ef0.pnj]

Picture by Timothy Morris

"You want to tell him what?" Mark's voice was level, but he sent Laura a look that said, I told you we couldn't trust him.

Imagine a pair of augmented reality glasses. These glasses have a camera in the nose piece, connected to screens where the lenses of normal glasses would be. Between the two, sophisticated algorithms running on tiny microprocessors filter the visual information passing through them, and make changes.

Imagine in this case that the glasses are programmed to remove shades of color, make shapes more geometrically perfect, add thick, black outlines around everything. They turn the world into a cartoon.

In keeping with this theme, your glasses redraw the characters in your life. The car that cuts you off in traffic spews black smoke. The complaining client grows a bulging belly and ridiculous red nose. Your friend says, "let's not do this," and grows bat wings and devil's horns.

As the shadows of others grow darker in your vision, you grow brighter. Enemies seem to surround you, but that's good. With so many powerful villains, you must be the hero.

Now imagine a species of talking animal, which evolved the biological equivalent to those glasses. It's easy to see the evolutionary advantage in a tendency to downplay flaws in yourself and exaggerate them in others. A plant grows toward sunlight, producing poisons in its root so nothing will grow to shade it. A wormlike rotifer gets to a floating bit of plankton and eats it before anyone else can get it. "Food smell=good" it thinks with its 34 total neurons, and never mind the other rotifer who starves. A jawless fish experiences anger when a shark tries to eat it. That must be a bad shark! The shark, for its part, is mightily pissed to bite down on a jawless fish and get a mouthful of defensive slime. A raven checks to make sure no other ravens are watching before it caches food under a rock, because it knows it would sure as hell steal another raven's food if it could. A high-status baboon will sink its teeth into the neck of a middle-status baboon, which will show every sign of misery until it can maul a low-status baboon in turn. Those that eat, succeed, and mate are the ones with a streak of hypocrisy. What's wrong for you to do to me is fine for me to do to you.

Which is why, when Koen confronted Mark and told him they had to return Mr. Grumbles, Mark felt as if his best friend had betrayed him. His blood hammered in his ears. His mouth went dry. The features of Koen's face suddenly seemed pitted and grotesque to Mark's sharpened eyes. He wanted to bare his canines and scream, to swat down this rival and show him his place!

Koen felt it. He looked up, pupils dilating. He had returned from shopping with Graa, begging for the chance to sleep in his own bed, and found his room strangely quiet and fresh-smelling. He'd cooked a quick non-beef stroganoff for Qani, Chadwell, and Ambassador Li, then waited an hour for Laura and Mark to return. Without Mr. Grumbles.

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"I want to tell General Graa that we took Mr. Grumbles," he said. "I want to end this."

You're not angry. Anger is for losers. Winners don't get mad, they get even. Thinking this, making it true, Mark turned his snarl into a closed-lip smile and forced his hand to clasp Koen's shoulder in a gesture of friendship. "We did end it."

Koen's expression turned suspicious in a way Mark didn't like at all. "Mark, where is Mr. Grumbles?"

"He's fine," Laura said hurriedly. She had stepped up to Koen, as if to get between him and Mark, which was annoying. "We released him, Koen. He's in the forest."

Mark watched Koen's face. Why had the man broken so easily? Why had he turned against the mission? Because he had always been Mark's enemy. He'd always planned this attack. This attack on the entire human species.

Koen shook his head. "But why didn't you tell me? I could have just taken Graa to the forest. We could say you found him."

"He ran away." Laura was annoyed and more than a little hurt. Any illusions she might have had about the quality of the care they'd provided had evaporated. Mr. Grumbles had shrugged off her hands and bolted at the first opportunity. Now he was somewhere in the woods. Well, good riddance. He was supposed to make her life easier, and he'd done exactly the opposite, the stupid ape.

Koen took a deep breath, increasing the supply of oxygen to his brain. "Okay," he said. "This is fine." He really wanted Mark to let go of him. "All I have to do is find him and present him to General Graa."

"And you'll tell him what?" Mark's fingers trembled with the urge to squeeze down hard. He took his hand away.

"We made a mistake. Let ourselves get carried away. We…we gave into temptation."

Mark didn't like those 'we's. Not at all. But that wasn't the right way to attack this. "Temptation?" he said. Yes, that was the weak point. "Like we ate too many potato chips? Whoops, I slipped and accidentally planned and executed an elaborate heist? No, Koen, this was you doing the wrong thing."

Koen winced. His back curled and his lips stretched in shame.

Mark thought how much Koen looked like Mr. Grumbles, and smiled. He was back on top.

"I want to do the right thing now," said Koen.

"All you have to do is tell Graa that his pet has been there this whole time. You released him into the forest on the first day. That way we don't have to explain who took care of Mr. Grumbles while you were leading Mr. Graa around."

Laura's stomach knotted. She found her mouth opening to tell Mark to stop this. Don't throw Koen under this bus. But he wasn't staff. He wasn't Chinese. His punishment would be minor compared to Mark's or hers. Surely, objectively, this was the best way.

"Mr. Grumbles has been living in the forest," Mark repeated.

Koen nodded, the whites showing all the way around his pupils. "If I can find him and give him back to Graa, it'll be like none of this ever happened."

How pointless that made everything he'd done. His conversations with Fling. Dinner with Promise. Graa on his shoulder. Laura's eyes shining at him. Would he just erase all of that and go back to being a cook at the Embassy? Of course he would. Nothing would be stupider than confession.

Laura was sick of the tension in the room. "Isn't that better? None of this should have happened."

Mark could not have struck so close to the bone. He hid his smile.