Memory Transcription Subject: Chiri, Gojid Bartender

Date [standardized human time]: November 19, 2136

First full week of the restaurant being open. Critical assessment? Phenomenal. Personal assessment? Augh. Mondays were supposed to be slow. David had been very clear that Mondays were supposed to be slow days for restaurants! But, as one of the only restaurants left in town, business was booming, and that meant that we were both laid out flat on the couch that evening, groaning from exhaustion.

Even human endurance has its limits, it seems, said Luna, sympathetically.

“We need more workers,” I said.

David tried to shake his head, but could barely lift it. “No, we need better workers,” he said, “but most of the real talent’s already gone off to Boston or Philly.” He sighed. “At least we got prime pick of everyone still hanging around the city, but… fuck, a short-order cook ain’t a sous-chef.”

“Still no word from your old staff?” I asked, holding out hope.

“Not a one,” said David. “Even tried people I knew from my old jobs. Fled, dead, or happily running their own food trucks.”

I groaned. “Well, at least the Yotul customers are already starting to flinch less at the human servers. Even if half of them still keep trying to order at the bar.”

“Mm,” said David in agreement. “We need more cute aliens working Front of House. Anymore Gojids at the refugee camps looking for work?”

“Nope,” I said. “I think the last of them might have finally gotten convinced to head back to Venlil Prime or a colony or something. And everyone else already has jobs. The Yotuls are doing construction, the Zurulians are doing medicine… most of the Venlil are still too scared to even show up planetside.”

David raised a hand, and then let it flop back down helplessly. “Just gotta push through, I guess. At least we’re making good money. I can try raising wages soon, see if that attracts more talent. Maybe I’ll get lucky and some fan of our social media page will show up from…” He blinked. “I was gonna say the Sulean-Iftali homeworld, for completion’s sake, but I don’t actually know it.”

“Jild, and that's not complete. That's still only about half of your new allies.” I sighed. “But unless we can afford to relocate them, too, any interplanetary hires still aren't gonna be cheap.”

“Gruh,” said David. “Fine. Guess that’s the future’s problem. What do you wanna do tonight?”

I tilted my head to one side. “I’m not really sleepy yet, I just can’t move. Movie, maybe?”

“Sure,” said David. “Short or long, and give me a category.”

“Short. I’ll pass out if it’s too long,” I said.

David smiled. “Heh. Fine, but we’re doing Lord of the Rings the first real day off we get. And a category?”

War and adventure, obviously, said Luna. We have so much to learn about humanity’s rich mythos. Bonus points if it has magic in it!

Something practical, said Shadow. We're probably too tired to internalize a documentary, though. Maybe a historical piece? Something with cultural significance, at minimum.

“Uhh…” I said aloud as I tried to combine those ideas. “Something old and culturally significant, but maybe a magical adventure? But on the lighter side.”

“Spirited Away,” David said, almost immediately. He shimmied his way back upright, so he could control the television better.

My eyes widened as the movie started, and I sat up on the couch as well. “Wait, hang on, is this whole thing animated?”

David tilted his head in confusion. “Y--Yeah? Is that unusual or something?”

“Art supplies are crazy expensive in the Federation!” I blurted out. “How did they get enough to paint, what, like a dozen or so pictures per second for a whole movie?”

David blinked. “Art isn't that expensive on Earth. Did you, like, want some art supplies or something? They sold them at the store.”

A quick quorum informed me that Luna and Shadow both approved of me artistically expressing myself. “Maybe when I've got more free time,” I said aloud.

I wonder what else is more inexpensive than it should be on Earth? Luna mused.

“What about video cameras?” I asked.

David raised an eyebrow. “Your holopad already has that functionality. I think you can even get lens attachments if you want to get fancy about it.”

I nodded, and wracked my brain for more rarities in the Federation. “...what about a gun?” I asked.

David choked on his own spit. “Why don't you start with a nice unarmed defense class before you move up to firearms, sweetie.”

That wasn't a ‘no’, observed Luna, as David resumed the movie.

The main character appeared to be a young girl named Chihiro, who was moving to a new town with her parents and wasn't happy about it. They took a wrong turn, got out to explore an abandoned amusement park, and found an unattended concession stand selling warm food, which the two adults helped themselves to. That was about the time when everything stopped making sense.

Stolen novel; please report.

I sat bolt upright in shock as Chihiro’s parents transformed into grotesque creatures ravenously gorging on food. “What the fuck are those?!” I blurted out.

“Pigs?” David said, tentatively. “They're one of our old cattle species.”

“But they're eating little roast birds!” I said, pointing at the screen. I didn't know what the dumplings were filled with, but the birds were unambiguous.

“Pigs are omnivores,” said David.

I blanched. “Humans eat other omnivores?!”

David put a calming hand on my shoulder. “Most Earth life doesn't really fit into the neat categories that the Federation taught you about. Most animals will eat whatever they can find. Pigs, in particular, are infamous for their gluttony.”

A fitting punishment, I suppose, for gorging on stolen food, said Shadow.

You’re getting into this? asked Luna, quizzically.

My request was for something with life lessons. ‘Don’t steal food’ is a sensible lesson, said Shadow, and most faerie tales end with terrible and ironic curses.

A mysterious yet pretty young man named Haku swept Chihiro up and gave her what advice he could. Flee before sundown if she could, eat the local cuisine and find a job if she couldn’t. The sun set, and the abandoned buildings of a broken-down carnival came to life as a place of leisure. Vibrant otherworldly creatures disembarked from a ship to visit. Chihiro had to hold her breath as she crossed the threshold into the strange world of spirits, or else she’d be caught by them. She snuck, perilously, down into the boiler room, where her kindness and curiosity won her a recommendation for a job interview with a wizened old bird-witch who stole part of her name. It was…

A little on the nose? said Luna.

“Wait. David.” I said, as he paused the movie. “So to summarize: this is a movie about a young girl almost named Chiri, whose parents get turned into omnivorous livestock, and she’s forced to find a job in a strange otherworld to survive?”

David blanched. “Uhhhhhhh…”

I glared at him. “Does anyone get eaten in this film?”

David’s eyes widened. “Not permanently! They get better afterwards.”

I rubbed my eyes, exhaustedly. “Please tell me this film at least has a happy ending.”

“Unambiguously,” David said immediately. “Not even really bittersweet. Chiri… fuck, sorry, now you got me doing it… Chihiro goes back to her normal life at the end with her parents and everything, and the saddest part is just her having to say goodbye to the friends she’s made in the spirit world after she escapes it.”

I sighed. “Why did you pick this film again?”

David’s head sank in shame. “Because I thought ‘Princess Mononoke’ would be too much for you.”

There’s a worse one? Shadow asked.

I pinched the bridge of my snout. “And Princess Mononoke is about…?”

“A human point-of-view character inserting himself into a bloody war between forest monsters and industrialists with no unambiguously good sides,” he said, miserably. “It’s a lot more gory than Spirited Away, so I thought the latter would be up your alley.”

He’s trying, Luna said, sympathetically.

“Hit play,” I said. “I’ll try not to read too much into it.”

Well I'm just going to have to read into it even harder, then, said Shadow, pettily.

The film went on, and it was hard not to get invested. Chihiro was plucky, and hardworking, and kind to everyone she met, without being obsequious. Human or not, she was the ideal heroine of the Federation, trying hard to make her own way in a world that was strange and scary to her.

She’s only been in the strange otherworld for a day or so, and she’s already thriving, said Luna. There’s an alternative lens you could view her through where she’s a poster child for humanity, or even for uplifts.

I shrugged. The Federation’s most recent uplifts were the Yotuls, and they seemed to be doing alright, on the whole. They barely had starships, and yet they were moving in droves anyway towards the “savage predator homeworld” to help out with rebuilding after the Battle of Earth. Nobody else was doing that. The Zurulians were here and there in higher academic circles, sure, but on the ground, where the real work needed to get done? It was the Yotuls that the average human saw, day to day. Humanity’s closest friends, the Venlil, were still too skittish to meet them on their own turf, and even my own people, the proud Gojids, seemed to recognize that discretion was the better part of valor. The Suleans and Iftali kept to their diplomatic space stations, the Fissans and Nevoks kept to their trade stations… Honestly, the whole galactic political scene was a fucking mess right now and HOLY SHIT did that doofy spirit just EAT a guy?!

“David…” I said, warningly.

“Noh-Face pukes him up later and he’s fine,” said David. “I legitimately don’t recall anyone or anything dying in this film.” He stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking, before he amended his statement. “A couple little paper spirit things, maybe, and it’s ambiguous if they’re alive in the first place or just normal paper animated by magic.”

We should learn how to animate paper with magic, Luna said immediately.

That’s not… this is fiction. You KNOW that this is fiction, right? Shadow said, shocked.

‘Gojids on the hunt’ was fiction until we rediscovered it, thank you, Luna said.

That’s not the same! Shadow objected.

Luna shrugged. Much of what the Federation taught us was fabricated, she said. We’d be fools to casually write off ideas as ‘impossible’ when the mere act of cohabitating with our carnivorous paramour is, by Federation doctrine, as impossible as fucking a chemical fire.

What the fuck? Shadow sputtered indignantly. The flames would eat your junk clean off!

Luna smirked. And yet David’s vicious tongue has been oh so gentle to us, has it not?

I tried not to laugh too hard, since we were in the middle of the scene where, as promised, the spirit Noh-Face spat up all the people he’d eaten, but David paused the film and stared off into space. Bad notification on his hololenses?

“You good?” I asked, hoping the answer was positive.

David shook his head. “Security alarm. Someone’s downstairs.”

My eyes widened. “Whaaat kind of someone?” I said, asking the obvious question.

David sighed. “These cameras aren’t amazing in low-light conditions,” he said. “Or ever, really. I need to fucking upgrade. It’s someone about four to five feet tall, so either an astonishingly short human or a normal-sized Yotul.”

David can probably take someone multiple heads shorter than him, said Luna. Even if it’s a fellow human, that’s how weight classes work in a fight, right?

Unless they have a gun or a knife, said Shadow. Or figure out where the knives are. It is a kitchen, after all.

“I’m gonna go poke around,” said David, getting up and heading for the door. “If I don’t contact you in five minutes, call 911.”

He’s got this, said Luna.

This is the last time you’ll ever see him alive, said Shadow.

“Good luck!” I said, smiling bleakly.