Evelyn slowly drifted into consciousness. She yawned, opened her eyes, and froze. The ceiling above her was white and curved, with no sharp corners where it met the walls. She sat bolt upright, staring around at the strange room. The bed she lay upon was a normal twin bed straight out of a college dorm. Everything else in the room looked strange. The ceiling and walls seamlessly fused with the floor, and the bedside table grew directly up from it. Everything was made from the same white material. The complete lack of color was unnerving, making the space feel sterile, almost medical. As her eyes traveled around the room, she saw an entrance, an open arch topped by a thin rod that grew across the apex of the door. Inexplicably, the rod threaded through familiar plastic rings, holding up what looked to be a normal shower curtain. It was just opaque enough to prevent her from seeing through.
Memory hit her. The dead man, the alien, and her offer. Her head felt odd, not painful, but different from normal in a way that wasn’t immediately obvious. She swung her feet to the ground and looked down at the clothing she was wearing. They had replaced the scrubs the police had given her with some kind of uniform. Spacious pants topped with a long-sleeved shirt that matched the surrounding room. Her skin crawled at the thought of being touched, stripped bare by the alien, but she pushed the feeling down.
A figure appeared, silhouetted through the curtain. Evelyn, heart pounding, jumped to her feet as Azur pushed the curtain aside and entered. Except, after a moment, she realized it wasn’t Azur. This Skonarian had some pigment on its neck and the sides of its face, a subtle pink tint. It was also dressed in white, but its garment was a single, skin tight suit ending midway down the creatures’ unnaturally long legs and arms. Its hands and feet were bare, revealing sixteen fingers and toes ending in sharp claws in place of nails.
“Look who’s awake,” said the creature, strolling to Evelyn’s side. It took her a second to realize that the alien hadn’t spoken English, though she could understand the language as clearly as if she had known it her whole life. The creature reached down and grabbed Evelyn’s face in an iron grip, impervious to her attempts to jerk away. It examined her, turned her head back and forth. Its hands were freezing. After a moment, it dropped her unceremoniously.
“There don’t appear to be any complications from surgery.”
Evelyn blinked. “Surgery?” she asked, raising her own hands to examine her face. It didn’t feel any different. “What’s going on? Where are we?”
“You’re on a Skonarian ship, currently traveling away from Earth. You’ve just undergone neural surgery. It’s normal to be disoriented.” She–Evelyn thought it was a she–spoke with a distinctly feminine voice, and her speech had a vaguely southern accent.
Evelyn scrambled backwards, trying to put some distance between her and the alien. “What did you do to me?”
“Oh don’t get your panties in a knot. You’ve had neural pathways artificially carved into your brain tissue, allowing you to speak and understand Common.” The woman gave Evelyn a smile with no actual warmth behind it, and exited the room with no further ceremony.
Don’t get your panties in a knot? She must have misheard.
Evelyn, unsure what to do, examined the room more thoroughly. There was a small chest growing out of the wall, filled with more of the same clothing she was currently wearing. Beside it was another narrow, domed doorway, this one topped by a digital clock that she could instantly read, though she had never seen the symbols before. She poked her head through the door and discovered a small bathroom. It had a reflective surface on one wall, but it didn’t look like a mirror. More like a projection, though the image was reversed as it would be in a reflection.
She looked terrible. Tired, almost gaunt, her shoulder-length hair frizzing out all over the place. She dug through the bathroom’s cabinet, and to her surprise, found a small hairbrush, along with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and other toiletries that could have been purchased anywhere on earth. Mechanically, she ran the brush through her hair, removing the worst of the knots before the sound of the curtain once again caught her attention.
“Evelyn!” cried a familiar voice, speaking the language the other woman had called Common. Azur. Her voice was also feminine, and her accent matched the other woman’s. “I am so glad to see you’re awake! Now we can have a proper conversation. I cannot tell you how much I HATE using the translators. I am just so tickled that you have decided to come onboard as one of our assassins. We’re looking forward to watching you chop up some Honrad for us.”
Azur wore a uniform similar to the other Skonarian, except its edges were lined in a bright silver trim. Her wig was gone, revealing her bald head. Her tone radiated friendliness, but in the inauthentic, syrupy sweet way of a salesperson.
On edge and not sure how to feel about any of this, Evelyn focused on the reason she was here. They could help her find Mildred, assuming she could do well in their competition. This was a job. She tried to relax, slipping into the persona she wore at work. “It’s nice to meet you, ah, ma’am.”
“Oh, please call me Azur. You are correct, I’m an egg layer, so in earth terms, I’m a female. However, we Skonarians don’t do the Marriage thing, so if you really have to be polite, I would be a Miss.”
The more she communicated with the Skonarians, the more Evelyn wondered about their similar body language and expressions. The way they were speaking was so colloquial, it wasn’t right.
“Now, I know you probably have just about a million questions, my dear, and don’t worry we’ll get to them.” Azur spun around, walked to the curtain, and pushed it aside. “If you’re ready, we can go to our presentation space and start getting you up to speed. However, if you need a few minutes to bathe, or otherwise collect yourself, please feel free to take them.”
Evelyn opened her mouth to tell Azur she was fine, then reconsidered. She hadn’t had a chance to properly wash herself since she had gone to work the day before. Suddenly, she felt sticky with dried sweat and blood that she knew wasn’t really there. “A bit of time to myself would be appreciated.”
Azur's mouth tightened, but she quickly covered the slip with an exaggerated grin.
“Of course, dear. Take all the time you need.”
Evelyn felt marginally better. According to the clock above the bathroom door, thirty minutes had passed. She was clean, and they had brought her some bland but satisfying oatmeal-like food. She ate slowly, buying time to process everything that had happened. She finished the bowl and waited for someone to come collect her, but no one appeared.
Cautiously, Evelyn stuck her head out past the curtain, looking back and forth down the hallway. It was the same as her room, white and seamless, lacking any sharp corners or color. To her left, she could see two more arched doorways like her own, also covered by curtains.
“Evelyn,” a voice came from the other direction, and she turned to see the Skonarian that wasn’t Azur rounding a corner and approaching. “Come right this way.”
The second Skonarian led her to a larger room. There was a long table at its center, and Azur sat next to it in what looked to be the only chair. As Evelyn approached, another chair sprouted from the ground, quickly growing to fill the space next to Azur. The woman gestured, acting like nothing unusual had happened, inviting Evelyn to sit.
Evelyn cautiously lowered herself into the chair, but almost jumped back to her feet as she felt it ripple beneath her. It contoured around her backside, sliding intrusively up her body. Evelyn shuttered, but forced herself to remain still.
Azur chuckled. “It’ll take you a few days to get used to Skonarian architecture. The entire ship is made of small, synchronized macro-A.I. units that adjust their shape and function as needed. We do try to include a few human comforts, though, to make the transition easier.”
Evelyn thought of the bed she had woken up in, and the curtain covering the door. There was also a human toilet in the bathroom. Artificial branches in bird cages.
Azur rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Let’s get started dear. We have a standard presentation-“
“How are we communicating like this?” Evelyn interrupted. She had a major in linguistics and spoke several languages with varying degrees of fluency. Communicating in a new language always took time, even when you had mastered the grammar and had a decent vocabulary. Especially when speaking casually, every language was full of idiomatic expressions and phrases that didn’t literally translate. That wasn’t happening here. “You just called me ‘dear’. The other woman told me not to ‘get my panties in a knot’. Those are human, English expressions. They shouldn’t exist, since we aren’t speaking English.”
Azur nodded. “It’s because we’re speaking Common. Common isn’t a native language anywhere. It was developed by the Sniffers–we’ll get to them–to allow easy communication between different species. Everyone surgically learns the language when they reach adolescence, after they have gained native fluency in whatever drivel their species speaks. This allows it to be a middle ground language, emphasizing meaning over literal translation.”
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“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, dear. Let’s use an example. Take the sentence ‘Bitch, you really went out and stabbed some asshole with a God damned umbrella?’ ‘Bitch’, to me, literally refers to a small fuzzy creature that we keep as pets, but it’s also a slightly insulting term of endearment, which is how I’m using it now. An ‘asshole’ is like a septic tank. It’s a storage container for, um, excretions, and it’s a common slang term for a really vile individual. ‘God damned umbrella’ is just the word umbrella, which is something everybody has, with an emphatic accent placed on it. I don’t know how your brain literally interprets what I just said, but the meaning should be approximately the same. It’s not perfect, but usually we can get our points across.”
It made sense, sort of, and Evelyn had to stop the linguistic part of her brain from hijacking the conversation. She could ask for details later. “What about body language? I thought you were just imitating human body language before, to put me at ease, but now I’m not sure. I don’t think it would look so…”
“Natural?” Azur finished, her toothy, overly friendly smile splitting her face. “If you let me go through the standard presentation, that will be explained.” Her wide golden eyes stared pointedly at Evelyn.
Evelyn hesitated, then nodded.
Azur settled into her chair. Her tone turned business like, falling into the rhythm of a lecture she had given many times. “I’ll start with my people, the Skonaros. Our home world is called Ovear. We live on the main planet, and on three of its four moons. About 1200 years ago—that’s Skonarian years, not Earth years—my people discovered an alien race called the Sniffers.”
Evelyn’s eyebrows went up. “Sniffers?” The literal meaning of the word seemed too deliberate to be a coincidence.
“Sniffers.” Confirmed Azur. “Their primary language is pheromone based. The Sniffers needed a name the rest of us could pronounce, and they, regrettably, left the decision to others. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
The wall to Evelyn’s right shifted, resolving into a subtly moving image. It looked like a projection, but Evelyn suspected the pigments came directly out of the wall. The image was of something that vaguely resembled an ant. It had a pitch black, glistening body divided into the three body segments seen in many Earth insects. From the middle section sprouted eight long arched legs, each ending in a serrated point. Besides the eight legs, four prominent feelers grew from what she thought must be its head. Two of the feelers were on either side of a butterfly-like proboscis, and two grew from where its eyebrows would have been if it had had eyes. The creature was clearly blind. As the image moved, it used its four face feelers to guide itself along.
“The Sniffers are old. Really old,” Azur continued. “According to them, while most other species were in the aquatic goo phase of their evolution, they were already a technologically advanced civilization. They have a joint consciousness. It’s similar to a hive, but there isn’t a queen, or other kind of leader. Each of them is a small part of one mind, one individual. They say that gives them an advantage. Each individual’s intelligence compounds into a huge, super complex mind, like a super computer. I’m not sure how much truth there is to that, but they are undeniably the most technologically advanced life form in our corner of the universe. Honestly, no one else even comes close.”
“The Sniffers found and studied many forms of intelligent life throughout the universe. They didn’t just observe though, they admit they futzed with the social development of different species, resulting in a lot of similarities.”
“Similarities like body language?” Evelyn asked, skeptical.
“Like body language.” Azur confirmed. “The Sniffers like consistency. They didn’t interfere so much that we all ended up identical, but we have a lot in common. We can’t blame the Sniffers for every coincidence, though. They didn’t mess with the biological evolution of any species, at least not that they’ve admitted. Have you heard of the theory of panspermia?” Evelyn stared blankly back at her. “No…” Azur continued, “You didn’t strike me as that kind of nerd. It’s the theory that life naturally propagates through the universe, that everything comes from the same stock, if you will. That is the only explanation we have been able to find for the similar flora and fauna we find everywhere. For example, about 60% of all known intelligent species are upright bipedal, like you and I, and we all have similar body make-ups. You guys really got the short end of the stick with the external genitalia. Those, thankfully, are human exclusive, as far as I am aware.”
Evelyn examined Azur, trying to decide if she was attempting to be funny. Azur waited a beat for a reaction. When none came, she snorted and raised a non-existent eyebrow.
“Well, aren’t you a bit up-tight? We’ll fix that. Sullen and emotionless play well for some assassins, but it’s not going to work for you.” Azur’s golden eyes dissected Evie, unblinking
Evie looked away, hoping that had been another joke. “Okay. Back to what you were saying before. What was the point? What were the, uh, Sniffers trying to accomplish by nudging different species so that we have social overlaps?”
“Those little buggers haven’t been entirely forthright on that subject,” Azur responded, steepling her clawed hands on the table. “However, we suspect it has to do with communication. As you have pointed out, communication is easier when species can understand each other’s non-verbal cues. On some level, we think they knew that one day they would make contact. Which brings us to the Blimps.”
The image on the wall blurred and reformed into another creature. The main part of its body was spherical, resembling a particularly fat seal. Its face was small and squished, with huge black eyes and a short snout. It had two comically small webbed flippers poking out of either side of its torso and a large, finned tail. Short, soft looking gray fur with a mossy tint covered its entire body. It was clearly aquatic, and it could have been a child’s plush toy, if it hadn’t been for the tentacles. It had six of them, three on each side. They were long, also furry, and trailed past the end of its tale. As the image moved, the tentacles rippled unsettlingly around the creature, allowing Evelyn to see the octopus-like suckers lining the underside of each. She couldn’t decide if the effect was cute or creepy. Maybe a little of both.
“The Blimps are originally from a planet called Voralona. It’s stunning, a huge tourist destination. Mostly ocean, and all the cities are underwater. The Blimps are an incredibly artistic people, and their cities are famous for their beauty and culture. Their primary language is tonal, so when they speak to each other, they sound like they are singing. It’s beautiful. It makes it even more unfortunate that the blimps themselves are genuinely some of the worst beings I have ever had the displeasure of working with. They are aggressive, and get offended at the drop of a damn pin.
“The Blimps were the first race to detect the Sniffer’s presence, and when they did, their reaction was predictable: nuke first, ask questions later. The Sniffers are conflict averse. They say it’s because their intelligence is cumulative. Losing individuals damages them as a whole. To avoid the situation escalating, the Sniffers offered the Blimps access to some of their technologies in exchange for a commitment to peace. Unlimited energy, access to plentiful resources, and health care that would prolong their lives indefinitely, assuming they didn’t do anything too stupid. The Blimps would continue to govern themselves in whatever manner they chose, so long as they complied with the Sniffers’ two requests: That all members of their population have access to the Sniffer technology, and that all violence, internal and external, be prohibited. The Blimps refused, of course, so the Sniffers negotiated. My understanding is they blew up one of the Blimp’s smaller colony planets and explained that the rest of them would follow if they didn’t accept the offer. Faced with total annihilation, the Blimps excepted, and the Understanding was born.”
Evelyn stared at Azur, incredulous. “They threatened to wipe out an entire intelligent species if they wouldn’t sign a peace treaty? That’s hypocritical.”
Azur shrugged. “That’s The Sniffers for you. Anytime a new species discovers them, they get the same offer: Join or die. To give those creepy crawlies a bit of credit, they do hold up their end of the agreement. Sniffer tech solves a lot of problems. Global warming, hunger, illness and death all become things of the past. Each race governs itself independently, so long as everyone follows the rules.”
“How’s that enforced?” Evelyn asked.
Azur waved her hand dismissively. “A subject for another day. We’re getting off track. We need to talk about the Assassination Simulation.”
Evelyn had so many more questions, but at the mention of the Assassination Simulation, they faded away.
“Predictably, the Blimps started to but heads with pretty much every other member of The Understanding. Tensions started to grow, and needed an outlet. Sniffer tech can resurrect individuals, so long as they die under specific conditions, so about 1200 years ago, the Blimps proposed some ‘regulated, light-hearted violence’, as a form of conflict mediation. The Sniffers agreed with a few conditions. They thought members of The Understanding fighting each other directly might escalate into a larger problem, so they decided the participants couldn’t be members. The individuals chosen had to have already committed violence on their own accord, killing at least one member of their own race. They also had to be willing, well-compensated participants.”
“Why would they care about participants being willing? They force races to join the Understanding. How is this be different?”
Azur flicked her tongue, and Evelyn’s mind translated the gesture as equivalent to a Human eye-roll. “Who the hell knows? Sniffer morals don’t make sense to anyone but them. Over the years, that competition morphed into The Assassination Simulation. It runs in seasons, and three races take part at a time. This season it’s us, the Blimps, and another race called the Honrad. That’s where you’re headed, to the Honrad home planet. Just a heads up: invest in some nose plugs before we land.”
Azur was interrupted by another Skonarian entering the room. It walked up to her, holding some kind of tablet.
“Oh heavens, is it that time already?” Azur stood and glanced down at Evelyn. “I have to go, but you need to go get a medical exam. I’ll have Mijra come escort you.”
Before Evelyn could say anything in response, Azur and the other Skonarian hurried from the room. The second they were out of sight, Evelyn tried to free herself from the clinging chair. For a moment, she worried it wouldn’t let her go, but after a tug it reluctantly pulled away and released her. She paced, thinking through everything Azur had just told her. The whole situation made her uncomfortable, but that didn’t matter. She had to do well, had to get that boon, even if there was only a chance it could bring Mildred back. At the very least, she would finally know what had happened and be able to make those responsible pay.
A few minutes later, the pink-scaled Skonarian from earlier stalked into the room. Azur called her Mijra.
“I’m to escort you to the med bay. Come on.”
After Azur’s artificial sweetness, Mijra’s brusque words were a welcome change. Evelyn nodded and made to follow.
Mijra hesitated, pulled out another of the tablet-like devices, and played with it for a moment. She tisked with annoyance. “Azur didn’t put in your name for the Sim. It can be your own, or a nickname, doesn’t matter.” She waited, finger hovering over the screen as she looked at Evelyn impatiently.
Evelyn thought for a moment. “Call me Evie,” she said.
Mildred had always called her Evie. It felt right.
Mijra typed her name into the tablet. “Alright Evie, welcome to the Assassination Simulation. We’ll see how long you last.”