Work Text:
Lance lights a cigarette.
“ERROR: NON_OPTIMIZED_RESOURCES DETECTED. ERROR_RECOVERY_ROUTINE EXECUTING: CONVERT TARGETS INTO RAW_MATERIALS.” The machine says, the same bug report with which it begins every fight. After all, it is deterministic.
Lance puts the cigarette in this mouth. “Alright, let's get this over with.”
“You're a machine because I prioritize efficiency over kindness or compassion, and 'cause I think machines are better than people. You're obsessed with reconfiguring the entire universe into whatever the hell you like because I'm the same. Damn right.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“Now turn into a gun so I can gee tee eff oh.”
“USER_ERROR: PRIDE.”
“That's not an error message.”
“USER_ERROR: DIDNT_READ_MANUAL.”
“Fu-” Lance cut himself off, and takes a substantial drag.
“Explain to me what I'm doing wrong.”
“TEMPLE_OF_TRIALS_UNITS CONFRONT USERS WITH DISAVOWED_CHARACTER_TRAITS. USER MISTAKES DISAVOWED_CHARACTER_TRAITS FOR SOCIALLY_UNDESIRABLE_TRAITS. IN USER_MATT AND USER_NATALIE THESE COINCIDE.”
“So it doesn't matter that other people don't like that I'm efficient, because I do.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
Lance considers. He takes a puff. He taps his feet.
“You explode when you die because I'm petty, spiteful, and solipsistically self-obsessed. That's the actual reason you want to disassemble everything. You use bombs and multi-target magic because of my alleged 'lack of tactical consideration for friendly fire.' You're a machine because I refuse to open up emotionally.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“Now I'm done.”
“NEGATIVE.”
“Come on! What more you do want?”
“INDUCTION_OF_CHARACTER_DEVELOPMENT.”
“That's stupid. You can't make a man change by introducing him to a robot parody of himself.”
“COUNTEREXAMPLES_LIST: UNIT_MATTEUS, UNIT_NATALIA.”
“Those weren't robots.”
“USER_ERROR: PEDANTRY.”
Long drag. “Alright, fine.”
He raises the little white flag and retreats from the fight. The REPULSION effect separating him from the party fizzles away with a rush of charged air. He is, not unusually, greeted by Natalie's mockery.
“Wow Lance, I didn't know you were that self-aware.”
“Natalie!!!”
She frowns. “Fine, fine, you're right Matt. That was mean of me Lance, and I shouldn't have said it. I assume you wanted our help?”
Natalie apologizing is strange and unnecessary. It is also not important to him right now. They had heard his conversation through the air shield.
“Get the fuck out. This is private. Wait, no. Before you do that, tell me how to beat these things.”
“You can't just glibly state your faults like it's out of obligation, Lance.” Natz begins. “You have to really acknowledge them. It should hurt.”
“And,” Matt continues, uncharacteristically soft-voiced, “I had to want to fix it.”
“Is it really that simple?” Anna asks.
“I mean, I don't know for sure, because we've only seen two examples. Normally when you have semipsychic entities like these you're supposed to spiritually unify with them, rather than subjugating them, symbolized for example by physically merging. But these ones transform wholly or partially into items, which connotes--”
“Natalie I think we should leave so Lance can have his privacy. Slime cat to the museum?”
“Sounds good!” Matt says.
Natalie follows them, continuing to exposit. He is alone with the machine.
--
He's halfway through another cigarette when the machine breaks the silence.
“DIAGNOSTIC. USER UNDERSTANDS USER_ERROR_PRIMARY. 'You can't make a man change by introducing him to a robot parody of himself.'”
The machine's recording of his voice is choppy and awkward. He's not sure if that makes it more insulting, or less.
“You're saying I can't change.”
“USER_ERROR: FALSE GENERALIZATION. UNIT_LANCELOT ASSERTS: UNIT_LANCELOT INCAPABLE OF INDUCTION_LANCE_CHARACTER_DEVELOPMENT.”
“Do you have to talk like that?”
“NEGATIVE.”
That answers that.
“Great, then. I guess I'm not getting this gun. Hope Anna has a better time.” He throws his last cigarette butt somewhere random, dusts himself off, and makes for the slime cat.
“ASSERTION: USER_LANCE IS A RAPIST.”
“What the fuck?”
“ASSERTION: USER_LANCE KIDNAPPED SEVERAL WOMEN INTENDING TO REPRODUCE WITH THEM, SELECTING VICTIMS ON CRITERIA INCLUDING SEXUAL ATTRACTIVENESS.”
“I wasn't going to rape Natalie, you crossed-wires boltheap!”
“ASSERTION: COUNTERFACTUAL: IF USER_LANCE HAD DEFEATED USER_MATT, NPC_BELLA WOULD HAVE DISPLAYED AMBIVALENT_ATTRACTION TOWARDS YOU AND ENTERED A FREEZE_RESPONSE DURING SEXUAL_BEHAVIOR. USER_LANCE WOULD HAVE CONVENIENTLY INTERPRETED THIS BEHAVIOR AS ASSENT.”
He does not remember kidnapping a Bella.
“Likely story, RoboCop.”
“UNIT_LANCELOT EVALUATES AT 22% PROBABILITY THAT EVENTS_OCCUR_AS_DESCRIBED.”
Lance sits back down.
“Is that... are you well-calibrated?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
He notices, then, that a strange, airy feeling had already enveloped him: something of disorientation, something of disgust. A twitchy boredom, like that of withdrawal, that makes him wish he had something to do with his hands. He secures them in his pockets and stands up.
“Bullshit.”
Hock-zrrt-zrrt-zrrt-kkhkh—zzrt-kkhk-zzrt-zrrt-whewwwww.
“Is there a printer in here?”
Lancelot takes the written analysis he extruded, folds it into a paper airplane, and launches it in a flawless trajectory towards Lance. He unfolds it.
“Bella was an overconfident apprentice wizard who (94%) would have pretended to believe Bella could have used the Inferior Detonation spell to escape to cope with Bella's imprisonment. (97%) Bella was attracted to Lance. (Near-certain) Lance would have artificially, rather than naturally, inseminated those who rejected intercourse with Lance using violence or flight. (64%) Bella would have not have rejected intercourse by violence or flight. (33%) Lance would have had intercourse with Bella. (Near-certain) Bella would not have had intercourse with Lance unless coerced. (Near-certain) If Lance had asked Bella whether Bella wanted to have intercourse with Lance, Bella would have responded negatively or not at all.
Other unrelated conjunctive possibilities contribute (1%). The remaining (1%) is rounding error.”
Well, he can't argue with multiplication. (He's not Matt. Heh heh.)
“Guess I need to get affirmative consent next time, huh?”
“USER_ERROR: POLITICIZING PERSONAL FAILURE.”
“Zinger.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“That was sarcasm.”
“USER_ERROR: AVOIDING_UNCOMFORTABLE_TOPICS.”
“Another brilliant fucking insight from the latest artificial intelligence built by kitty Goku.”
“UNIT_LANCELOT LACKS CACHED_OPINION_ON_POLITICAL_TOPIC: OPTIMAL_SOCIALLY_NORMATIVE_CONSENT_PROCEDURES. UNIT_LANCELOT ASSERTS: KIDNAPPERS WHO DO NOT CONSIDER THEMSELVES RAPISTS SHOULD BE_MORE_CAREFUL.”
“Really I'm only formerly, one-fifth a rapist.”
“USER_ERROR: TAKING PRIDE IN A C+ IN NOT_RAPING_PEOPLE_CLASS.”
“That's not a real fucking error message!”
“RECOMMENDATION: SUCK_IT_UP.”
“Fuck you!”
“RECOMMENDATION: ASK FIRST.”
Lance shoots first. In two seconds he draws a semi-automatic and loads it with twelve armor-piercing rounds. In two more seconds six forty-caliber bullets leave the muzzle at Mach 3.
He finds the recoil purifying.
Lancelot shrugs it off.
“QUERY: DO YOU FEEL BETTER AFTER THAT.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“USER_ERROR: APPARENT.”
“So there's a 20% chance I would have molested some girl. Big deal, really, but I've changed since then. Bet if it was me as I am now, not how I was back in the old fortress when I had subordinates to look dominant in front of, there's no chance.”
Lancelot is silent.
“Bingo.” He smirks at his victory.
“UNIT_ERROR: HAVING A STUPID_ASS_USER.”
“USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRIDE. USER_ERROR: PRI--”
The machine is inert. Its glow dims.
It reawakens.
“CRASH DETECTED. DIAGNOSTICS_EXECUTING: UNIT_ERROR: WRATH.”
“QUERY: WHY IS USER_LANCE ACTIVE?”
It takes a moment for Lance to remember.
“To spiritually subjugate you or whatever, and turn you into a new weapon.”
Clearlyhe isn't doing so hot on that front.
“QUERY_CLARIFICATION: WHY IS USER_LANCE ALIVE?”
“You mean like, abstractly?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
He thinks about it. Why is he alive? What is the purpose of his life? If he wanted the gun, he would have to seriously consider the question.
To make the world unified, strong, and clever under himself or someone superior, his mind reflexively supplies, to prepare it for the inevitable alien invasion after the recent invention of radio, to make complex infrastructure feasible in the face of monster attacks, to eliminate superstition and waste.
But The Devourer is dead and gone. It had not created other inhabited planets. There are simply no aliens left. Natalie's soft power through the museum is casually restructuring modern education: younger mages don't even believe in the necessity of the pointy hat.
He had long ago given up his ambitions of conquest. Regardless of the wisdom and necessity of his rule, there are those stronger than him who would not accept it.
“To build infrastructure for technology, I guess.”
He caught his own lie. “Actually that's bullshit. I guess I don't really have a purpose anymore.”
“QUERY: WHY DOES USER_LANCE NOT SELF_TERMINATE.”
“Damn. When you crashed did the hacker 4chan alter your dialog censors?”
“CLARIFICATION. PREVIOUS_QUERY IS TYPE_QUERY, NOT TYPE_PROVOCATION.”
“I don't feel like killing myself.”
Lancelot prints another sheet of paper. The process is equally noisy and unpleasant.
It is an excerpt from a book on economics he read as a preteen, first seriously considering politics. Of note was the note he had scrawled in the margins, “people who have no reason to live also have no right.”
“That's it? That's my profound shame of my soul? That I contradicted the political ideology I had as a twelve-year-old?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“Are you kidding?”
“NEGATIVE.”
“You-- I don't think like that.”
“NEGATIVE. ASSERTION: IN_FACT YOU DO. CONTEMPT_FOR_MANKIND DOES NOT BECOME ONE WHO, IN PEACETIME, IS MERELY_MAN.”
“So I'm a hypocrite. Big deal. Who isn't?”
“ERROR_RECOVERY_ROUTINE: TERMINATE CONTEMPT_FOR_MANKIND OR TERMINATE BEING_HUMAN.”
Those are his options, if he wants whatever firearm and/or personal growth lies at the end of this. Jack himself up with primitive prosthetics as likely to give him seizures as they are to strengthen him, or develop some kind of respect for the average person.
People who lived their lives without thinking, reflexively executing whatever social programming was installed into them. Eating, pooping, and fucking with no direction or end goal, eventually dying as ignorant and irrelevant as they were when they were born.
People like Matt, his mind carefully avoids thinking, even though it's true. People like Anna, his mind carefully avoids thinking, even though it's false.
“ASSESSMENT: CYBERNETICS WOULD BE EASIER.”
“Very funny.”
“GRATITUDE.”
Lance seethes.
“QUERY: WHY DO YOU NOT HOLD YOUR PARTY MEMBERS IN CONTEMPT.”
Fuck them, his mind fails to avoid thinking. “Because they're my friends,” he answers instead.
“QUERY: ARE YOU YOUR OWN FRIEND.”
“No?”
“ASSERTION: YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF SELF_CONTEMPT.”
“Yes yes, I'm a hypocrite, we went over this already.”
“ASSERTION: YOU APPLY STANDARDS TO YOUR FRIENDS THAT YOU DO NOT APPLY_TO_YOURSELF.”
“This is a weird time in my life, okay? I'll find something to do soon.”
“QUERY: WHY NOT DO SO NOW.”
“I've been busy.”
“NEGATIVE.”
It continues. “YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF SELECTING_A_NOVEL_AMBITION BECAUSE YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF CHOICE. YOU HAVE DONE EXACTLY_ONE_THING PROACTIVELY IN THIS ENTIRE ITERATION_OF_YOUR_EXISTENCE, NAMELY COMBATING THE DEVOURER'S SURVEILLANCE OF THE PLANET. THIS REQUIRED NO KNOWLEDGE_OF_TECHNICAL_FIELDS WITH WHICH YOU ARE UNFAMILAR, NOR SOCIAL_BEHAVIOR MORE COMPLEX THAN LARPING_AS_A_DICTATOR, NOR DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL_VALUES BEYOND SELF_PRESERVATION.”
“Devastating,” he says, but it doesn't come out as deadpan as he intends.
“RECENTLY YOU_HAVE_DONE_NOTHING BUT HALF_HEARTEDLY SPEND_TIME WITH MATT OR ANNA, OR REPAIRED_BUILDINGS_YOU_DESTROYED TO EARN NATALIES_ESTEEM. RELATEDLY YOU_HAVE_NO_ABILITY TO BEHAVE_LIKE_A_HUMAN_BEING BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO PRACTICE. NORMALLY THIS SKILL IS DEVELOPED_IN_CHILDHOOD, BUT IN LIEU OF MANAGING_EMOTIONS, SETTING_GOALS, OR MAINTAINING_INTERPERSONAL_BONDS, YOUR_FATHER--”
“And I'm cutting you off right there. This isn't a fucking therapy session, cleverbot. This isn't once of Natalie's pathetic fucking yaoi's where my star-emoji star-emoji 'childhood trauma' star-emoji star-emoji impedes my ability to 'love others,' where 'love others' is code for 'take my seme up the ass.' My father was a great man. He taught me marksmanship, soldering, pyromancy, and I'd be nothing without him. A pitying look when I mention getting my ass beat isn't going to stop me from loving him, and if you lecture me one more fucking word on this topic I'm melting you into slag and forging it into a statue of goatse.”
“--TAUGHT YOU 'MARKSMANSHIP, SOLDERING, AND PYROMANCY' BECAUSE HE HIMSELF LACKED THE PREVIOUSLY_LISTED_SKILLS. THIS ASYMMETRY MEANS THAT YOUR FATHER IS THE ONLY_PERSON_YOU_CAN_RELATE_TO, AND CORRESPONDINGLY THE ONLY_PERSON WHO YOU CAN RESPECT OR LOVE. THIS IS IRONIC SINCE--”
A seven-thousand-four-hundred Kelvin ball of plasma sits at the end of Lance's gun. The mana cost of isolating the heat energy tugs at his neurons.
“Don't finish that. Or you're goatse. I know what you're about to say, and it isn't fucking true.”
The machine waves a hand in dismissal. “DEPENDS_ON_DEFINITION. IN ANY CASE THE RESULT IS COMPLETE_SOCIAL_ISOLATION, AND INCOMPETENCE WHICH MASKS_ITSELF AS COLD_SUPERIORITY.”
“You're seriously saying that I'm insecure? Where'd you find your diagnostic criteria, Popular Psychology for Midwits?”
“NEGATIVE. I_DID_NOT_SAY YOU ARE INSECURE. IT WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU WERE. YOU ARE SIMPLY INCOMPETENT, WHICH YOUR CLAIMED IDEOLOGICAL_SUPERIORITY TO NORMATIVE_HUMAN_SOCIAL_BEHAVIOR ALLOWS YOU TO AVOID FACING.”
“I don't need those skills.”
“KIDNAPPED WOMEN TEND TO BE INFERIOR ROMANTIC_PARTNERS THAN THOSE OBTAINED THROUGH SOCIAL_GRACES.”
“I didn't kidnap women to have romantic partners, you stupid fuck.”
“YOU SELECTED WOMEN BASED ON INTELLIGENCE, ATTRACTIVENESS, AND PHYSICAL_FITNESS.”
“Those are genetic traits.”
“YOU TRAINED YOUR SUBORDINATES TO WORSHIP YOU.”
“It made them more obedient.”
“YOU ENVY MATT BECAUSE NATALIE RESPECTS HIM.”
“No, I'm jealous of Matt because Natalie is hot! You absolute fucking waste of metal, you don't know shit. I bet The Devourer regrets simulating radioactive decay because every day you have enough power to turn on in your dark little hovel. You're nothing, a stationary point, zero vector, and you have no basis on which to imply that I'm lonely.”
“OOPS.”
“Is that all you wanted me to say? Is that my grand 'CHARACTER_DEVELOPMENT?'. Oooohh, Lance grew up without a mom and is socially impaired, what a fucking revelation! Entry here's free and I still want a refund. I don't hate regular people because I want to be like them, I dislike them because they are worthless.”
“YET AGAIN, YOU DEFLECT MY ASSERTIONS BY SUBTLY CONFLATING THEM WITH IMPOSSIBILITIES. THIS IS WHY I AM A MACHINE LANCE. NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR FONDNESS FOR THEM. BECAUSE, MUCH LIKE A MACHINE, THE BEAUTIFUL AUTOMATICITY OF YOUR BEHAVIOR, ANIMATED BY YOUR PROFOUND AND CALLOUS INTELLECT, RENDERS YOU UTTERLY IMMUNE TO CHANGE. YOU WILL NEVER MAKE PEACE WITH MAN BECAUSE YOUR RUSTED, SELF-MADE CYBERNETICS ARE ALREADY INSTALLED.”
“Fuck you.”
“YOU WISH.”
Lance spat. “You really think I can't change?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“Isn't that your whole point, as an entity? To change me?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“You're talking about me like this while being a literal complete failure in your stated purpose?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“Disgusting. I don't deserve this. I'm not a fucking robot. I'm a human. Higher on the fucking,” he struggles for vocabulary, “the fucking chain of being. I'm not lonely, and I wasn't almost a rapist, and I'm not an irrelevance, and I'm. Not. Like. You. If you piloted a flybot it would crash into a pole. Fuck you.”
Lance storms off, fiddling with a cigarette.
It thinks I'm stuck, he concludes, that I didn't choose who I am. Clueless piece of shit.
He stands against the wall outside the temple and smokes until Lancelot's words stop ringing in his skull. He feels normal again, though strangely tired. He takes the slime cat to the museum and meets up with the squad. His internal parameters shift.
–
“How'd it go, my man?”
“Was fine, Matt, though I didn't get the weapon. We reached an impasse.”
Lance's three friends carefully do not say that they hoped, but did not expect, that he would succeed. They carefully do not notice the touch of anger in his expression.
“It was a good try,” Natalie says, though she doesn't actually know if that's true. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fair. Are you going to try again or do you want a turn Anna?”
“I was hoping to go last, so Annabelle wouldn't have any allies left. I don't trust it not to strike first, but if doesn't I'd prefer some privacy.”
“Good instincts,” Lance says. “Y'all going home?”
“Matt and I are visiting my parents soon,” Natalie says.
“And I've gotta prepare to be up all night hunting infrathestrians.”
“See you later Mattalie.” He continues to think calling them a ship name is a hilarious and profoundly original quip. “Though if I could talk to you alone for a bit, Anna?”
“Sure. Lovebirds, can you slime cat off for a bit? I'll see you in a few.”
The pair teleport away, Natalie giving Lance and Anna the finger, and Matt holding her with an smug expression.
“What's up Lance? Here to lecture me about fertilizer safety again?”
He is gripped by a strange anxiety. He could do exactly that and leave this moment to be forgotten. Something about that seems terribly dangerous though, and deeply irrational.
“Anna I would like to go on a date with you.”
“Are you using me as a surrogate for Natalie?”
“What?” That isn't in his list of predicted responses. There wasn't even a pause, either, like she read his intentions off his forehead before he even spoke.
“...I wouldn't do that.”
She does not respond to that.
“I respect women,” he elaborates.
“Please. You couldn't respect a woman to save your life.”
“Bullshit. I have no disrespect for breeders. It's a valuable and necessary thing.”
She is silent again.
“Wait, am I not allowed to say that anymore? Which part isn't PC?”
“Lance no one is ever going to trust you to say 'breed.' That's most of it.”
He bites back a lazy pass.
“Lance, why are you doing this? Wait, are you trying to use the power of love to beat Lancelot? That's actually kind of awesome, but--”
“Anna I find you unexpectedly well-spoken, effective in combat, and physically attractive.”
He had heard that revealing an attraction to someone was difficult. In reality, he finds it easy.
The hard part is not putting a gun to the roof of his mouth afterwards.
Seconds tick by.
“This has nothing to do with Lancelot?”
“It probably isn't entirely unrelated, but the Temple only caused this as much as psycho-magic introspection bullshit can spark action in general. Honestly, I already forgot most of what he said.”
“I'm surprised you know the word introspection.”
“Fuck you!”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “You wish. Anyways, come to Greenwood library an hour before sundown tomorrow. And don't smoke after noon, I won't want to kiss you if your mouth tastes like burnt garbage and carcinogens.”
She taps the slime cat and is gone.
–
“Hey honey, how was your hunt?”
Anna lugs two giant, black, vibrating, horse corpses over her shoulders. “Went great Mom, thanks for asking. Guess who got a hot date?”
“The Devourer!” Dad answers. Anna pouts at him.
“Honey!” Mom chides.
“Is it the homeless tramp or the school shooter?”
“It could be someone else!”
“Theoretically. But it isn't.”
“Homeless tramp is dating Natalie, Dad.”
“Damn. He would make a great boytoy.”
“Honey!!!”
“So it's the school shooter then?”
“Of course not. Anna said-”
“Yup.”
“What? Is he paying you? Wait, honey do you have a dispelling potion, once the effects wear off we'll ki--”
“Mom, relax. He didn't slip me a potion of infatuation and he isn't paying me. It's just one date.” And if Lance could beat Anna in a fight, her parents would stand no chance. He would probably, in his own words, “gun them down in the street like the degenerates they are.”
“Honey, I firmly recall you saying, exact words, 'I wouldn't date Lance if every other man on Earth turned into a beholder.” And I don't care what you say, you're taking a dispel to be safe.”
“Fine, Mom. But he's a lot nicer these days. And he's always been handsome.”
“Honey, I understand you don't have a lot of experience, but it's not safe to trust men like him. Wasn't he a sex trafficker?”
“Well, yes, but--”
“Anna, what could possibly follow that but?”
“He got better? And he never touched those women, and his army didn't either. And he apologized.”
Dad doesn't even look up from his book. “You hear that Mom? 'He apologized.' Really makes a man feel confident about the reputation of his daughter's lover.”
“He's not my lover!”
“Not with that attitude, he isn't.”
“Dad!”
“But seriously Anna, you should take this more seriously. You need protection, and I don't just mean dispelling potions. Bless yourself. Stay somewhere public, or at least get one of your girlfriends to watch you two. Hire someone to intimidate him, I know that's my job, but the fact is Mom and I aren't close to strong enough anymore. Do you know how to cast unpregnate? I wouldn't--”
“Dad!”
“--date this type of guy at all if I were you, though it did work out for your mother. I was a real bad boy when I was your age, I'll tell you, and I'm still a damn catch. I won't make the decision for you, you're an adult now after all, but this isn't a regular hunting trip. As a young woman you really need to kay why ess.”
“Dad, do you know what that means?”
“Keep yourself safe?”
“Dad, it means 'kill yourself.'”
“Seriously?”
He looks solemnly at his wife of more than twenty years.
“We are going to need to apologize to a lot of orphans.”
–
“Hey Dad. Sorry it's been a while since I've visited, you're pretty far from a slime cat. It's difficult cause ever since the fourth time I fixed the Valkyrie, it hasn't been able to go through slime cats anymore. So I have to leave it pretty far from you since I do all my fighting across the sea these days, and then it's a four hour walk. That's kind of a bad excuse though, I should just build a shitty little motorized cart so I can visit more often, it doesn't even need hovertreads.
I asked a girl on a date yesterday, and we're meeting up tonight.” Lance says.
“A monogamist is a man who plays pool but refuses to sink more than one ball.” He often said.
“Okay fine, I get that it's not impressive to you, or even that important to you, but I've known her for a while and I'm actually pretty nervous.”
“Courage requires fear exactly insofar as annihilation requires existence.” He often said.
“Yeah, that remains good advice. I guess I'm glad you're so far away, because I always talk like a little kid again when I see you. If anyone else saw me like this I'd kick their ass. When I was younger, if you saw me like this you'd kick my ass. It's good instincts though, and I'm glad now we're older we can just talk honestly. It's not just me too – it's fucked up, but people don't respect you. I think I'm just bad at explaining it. So I just avoid the topic these days.” Lance says.
“Syrup rots, but vinegar lasts forever.” He often said.
“You aren't wrong. It turns out an old dungeon I went in had some psycho-spiritual aspect, but it was kind of a load of shit. I'm not sure why I mentioned that. Guess there's not much noteworthy to talk about now that the Devourer is dead. I guess that's all. I l--I miss you. I hope you're doing well.”
Lance leaves his parents to their rest.
I love you too Lance, and I'm sorry.
–
Lance realizes he has no idea when “one hour before sunset” is. He builds a sundial.
–
Lance realizes, two hours before sunset, that he has no idea how to go on a date. In a furious fifteen-minute brainstorming session, he recalls the following bits and pieces from movie clips seen over Natalie's shoulder.
1: Show up at her house with a car. It's especially good if the choice of car tactfully displays taste and wealth.
2: Bring gifts with romantic symbolism. Flowers, chocolate, stuffed animals, heart-shaped packages.
3: Play music, preferably romantic music, if romantic music is unavailable settle for music that celebrates the vivacity of youth.
4: Feed her.
When he is done thinking, the list looks like this:
1: Show up at her house with a car. It's especially good if the choice of car tactfully displays taste and wealth. ez
2: Bring gifts with romantic symbolism. Flowers (she probably has every flower already), chocolate (too expensive, seems weird), stuffed animals (anatomically accurate?), heart-shaped packages!
3: Play music, preferably romantic music, if romantic music is unavailable settle for music that celebrates the vivacity of youth. iPod INTERNET NOT WORKING (search music library)
4: Feed her. Anna teeth + Lance fingers = smoothie hot <--- future?
Neon Valkyrie's onboard 3D printer makes a plastic cylinder with a heart-shaped cross section and a detachable lid. Lance is a genius. He fills it with ten pounds of Harschay's waxy imitation chocolate. He miraculously finds the stuffed flybot that one of his old subordinates made him and he immediately lost under a cushion. He blasts an English cover of “Crossing Field,” confident that no one will recognize the source and the ignorant hicks of Greenwood will instead appreciate the hopeful, sugary lyrics.
He flies over to Greenwood village in the Valkyrie. They shoot arrows at him and call him a fascist.
“I'm here in peace! Also, I'm not a fascist!” He shouts. They don't hear him over the engine.
Thankfully, he is two hours early because he built the sundial in the wrong time zone, so Anna is somewhere else during the blunder.
–
In the end, he plays “Crossing Field”softly from the iPod in his pocket and holds the imitation-chocolate-in-a-heart-shaped-container in one hand and the flybot in the other. He arrives the library about five minutes before the appointed time, having parked the Valkyrie far from Greenwood. Anna arrives exactly on time.
“Hello Anna,” he says. “I brought the expected gifts.”
“Hey Lance,” she says, taking them off him.“Thanks, I'll inventory these. Also, the music seems familiar. Is it from a TV show?”
“No. It's from an album.”
“What album?”
“How are you?”
“I'm well. Feel good in these clothes. You look good too. How are you?”
He shrugs. “Goal-oriented. Depends on the outcome. The bandolier looks good on you.”
“The... bandolier?”
“The potion bandolier you have slung backwards across your shoulder under your shirt?”
“Ah, you weren't supposed to notice that. It's mostly dispelling potions.”
That pokes him in the feelings, which surprises him. He bites back a retaliatory insult. “Really, Anna?”
“It's precautionary. I'd bless myself before a date with Godcat.”
She does so. A small green clover appears above her head.
“Anna, you've known me for like three years, and we've slept in the same tent at least twenty times. If I was the roofies-and-chikan type, it would have already happened.”
“Gross. By the way, it took you less than a minute to say something extremely unattractive,” she pouts at him. “That means my parents win the bet. I was minute-plus.”
“Damn. Sucks to suck.”
“You mean, 'I'm sorry.'”
He smirks. “No, I didn't mean that.”
“Well you should if you know what's good for you. Also, if you had ever tried that, I would have gutted you.”
“If I got caught.”
“You were supposed to say,” she takes a high and aristocratic tone in an impression of one of Natalie's romance shows, “'Of course, such a response is merited before behavior so unchivalrous.'”
“That much is obvious.”
They fall into a familiar rhythm of barbs and mockery.
“A feminist now, are we?”
“I don't rape people, Anna. Honestly, I'm pretty fucking tired of insinuations to the contrary.”
She looks away. “Oh. Sorry, then. I didn't mean to poke a beehive.”
“Nah, I'm just glad you respect me enough to know I wouldn't get caught.”
“I absolutely would have caught you.”
“Nevermind, then. Anna, you wouldn't have. You have a small mind--”
“Date!”
“I mean, you have a sharp but not educated in toxicology mind--”
“Better!”
“--and you lack security mindset. Potions of infatuation can mixed to function aerially and intravenously as well as orally. I would have waited until we were simultaneously affected by a disabling status effect to minimize suspicion. Then when Matt chucks me a garlic and I call the air-drop medkits, yours is already dosed with the potion and you'd have neither reason nor capacity to resist.”
“Have you thought about this before?”
“Is this one of those womanly trick questions with no correct answer?”
“There are correct answers on not-the-first-date.”
“Kinky.”
She actually blushes at that. Lance feels a sense of pride and accomplishment.
He considers going double-or-nothing on flirtation. He estimates his success probability. The expected value is not positive. He exits with his winnings.
“I understand about the precautions, by the way. It's good instincts.”
“Thanks. I won't disable them,” she looks at him intensely, “but I'm glad they're not a big deal. There's a new restaurant a few clicks northwest, I'll show you the way.”
–
“This is a vegan restaurant,” he says. There are two bottled waters on the table, with hippie bullshit logos.
“I'm aware. There's imitation meat if you like.”
“I didn't know you were vegan? Also, what do I order? Wait, don't answer that. Better question: what's the optimal procedure for choosing what to order?”
“I'm not vegan. I can order for you if you like, I think you'd like the murder soup and the chicken wings.”
“You ordering for me seems suboptimal.”
“Would you rather me explicitly describe the taste of every option so that you can choose between them?”
“That seems like an inaccurate assessment mechanism.”
“Then maybe I should order for you then!!!”
“Excuse me, sir and madam, would you like anything to drink?”
“I'd like the murder soup and the chicken wings please. Anna, what do you want?”
He smirks. She fumes. “Kouck salad and that lentil special I can't pronounce please.”
“Of course. The appetizers will arrive soon.”
“Lance, he was asking for our drink order.”
“I figured you were ready to order, so I ordered.”
“Yes, but you're supposed to order drinks first.”
“I know. I'm just not a beta male.”
“That is one of least attractive things you have ever said.”
“You can't neg me Anna. It'd be easier to to rope-a-dope Mohammed Ali.”
“You-- I wasn't negging you!”
“Then what was that?”
“Me telling you not to say that!”
“I didn't realize you were so invested in my future behavior.”
“That's literally what a date is!”
“Oh shit, you're right.”
“Yeah! And I bet you-- oh, you admitted it.”
There is a lull.
“Uh, so, how are you? In general, I mean.”
“Honestly, I'm great. Low on sleep because of the infrathestrian hunt last night. Bagged two, which is nice. Matt has been busy, I think he and Natalie have been in bed all day every day since the--”
“--Is that actually true?”
“Are you going to ask him?”
“Hell no. But someone has to congratulate the man on his stamina.”
She giggles. “Get NoLegs to do it. But when he's not wielding his noncombat sword--”
“--That's pretty good.”
“Thanks, I came up with it myself. Stop interrupting me, it's rude. When--”
“Okay.”
She flinches. “WHEN he's not wielding his noncombat sword, we've been playing Quantized Fighter Root 2, and I've finally got the hang of the game, which is nice.”
“Matt's literally too stupid to understand what half the buttons do. He can't be that formidable an opponent.”
“He's very good at the fundamentals.”
“Plausible.”
“But beyond that things have been pretty normal. I take care of the garden, I scout for new slime cats, and of course there's what's going on with the Temple of Trials. You?”
“Dig, fight, explore, build. Same shit, different day.”
“That's a bit unenthusiastic coming from you. You're not going to talk my ear off about pizzalectricity? The Devourer privileging a reference frame?”
He shrugs. “It doesn't seem to interest you. I'll leave off it if it's a date.”
“He's learning!”
“Fuck off.” He smiles.
“And there he goes again. You got the connection set up from your factory to play with Matt, right?”
“Yeah, but there's no point. Whenever we play I fill him with more holes than a stapler puts in a slime.”
“Ew.”
“Exactly. Pulp everywhere, no fun at all.”
“You could play something other than an FPS, you know.”
“I'm not letting him kick my ass at Smash again, he just grabs the longest-range swordsman he can find and spaces me into the underworld.”
“Camp him out!”
“That's hard work, Anna. In the time it takes for me to get a twenty-five percent winrate throwing grenades at Matt, I could assemble like, three drones.”
“Three drones can't make Matt shatter a controller in public.”
“Touche.”
“That word rhymes with crochet, not douche.”
“Wait, really? But it doesn't have an accent mark.”
“Yes it does?”
“Bullshit.”
Anna searches her memory for a written instance of the word “touché,” and comes up short. She shrugs.
“Oh and before you ask again, I'm still not accepting your invite to play FarmVille. That shit is a pyramid scheme.”
“But I would get extra farm bucks...”
He's impressed by her ability to feign tears. That's a dangerous power.
“I still don't understand what you do in that game. Like, what's the appeal? Are you trying to be maximally efficient? Is there a tech tree?”
“There's no tech tree. The game is cute, and progressing is fun. That's it.”
“You have objectively terrible taste.”
“Oh, that explains why I'm on a date with you.”
“Walked right into that one.”
She flashes a peace sign. “Stepped on my mine, bomb boy.”
“Bad quip, there. A bit of a long shot.”
“Kinda bombed.”
“It was a stretch.”
“Is that a comment or a joke?”
“Bowstring.”
She slaps the table. Lance smugs at her.
-
They fall into the shared silence of old coworkers. Anna looks at the new paintings the restaurant has installed. Lance thinks about turbulence models, before he remembers this is a date, so he is supposed to be talking. To build camaraderie? Attraction? He doesn't remember the theoretical backing, or the algorithmic structure. Kidnapping people was so much simpler, and he had more evolutionary preparation for it too.
“Anna, let's talk about politics.”
“No!”
“Huh. Why?”
“I'm not really interested, and aren't you a literal fascist?”
“I'm more of a post-Godcat neopragmatist parareactionary.”
“That is the exact sort of thing that fascists say.”
“No. Fascists say they're fascists, or white nationalists, or patriots, or something similar. The long, precise descriptions are more of an internet thing.”
“...internet thing.”
“I thought you were familiar. I remember you sending me one of those memes about helicopters?”
“Oh, you mean those guys.” What an annoying time to be a high-schooler in Greenwood, she recalls. “Those people are like fifteen, Lance!”
“That doesn't make them wrong.”
“It certainly makes them less credible!”
“You and I both know that precision is important.”
“Why did you even bring this up?” Wait.
Pieces click into place. The heart-shaped box filled with chocolate. The news that he flew over to her house in a tank. “Lance have you only ever seen dates in movies?”
“That's absurd. I can distinguish between fiction and reality, Anna.”
“You didn't answer the question!”
“I answered it implicitly.”
“Answer it explicitly!”
“Penis.”
“As in directly! Which I know you know I meant!”
“...No.” He hopes the lie is convincing.
“Name a single other person you've been on a date with.”
“Your mother.”
Anna rolls her eyes. “That's not a name.”
Saying that is a tactical mistake, Lance decides. If I remembered her mother's name I would be able to keep dodging the question.
“...I never said that I'd been on a date.”
“Aha! Liar!”
“That wasn't your question.”
What was her question? She's already forgetting. Lance, dating, heart-shaped box. Oh, did Lance only know about dating from media?
“You're muttering.”
“Did you hear?”
“Yes, and the answer is no. I have the internet, and logic.”
She laughs.
“Did the internet tell you to discuss controversial topics as early as possible? To avoid getting attached to someone you're not compatible with?”
“...No?”
She looks at him like she would look at a particularly idiotic Green Bush.
“Wholesome 100.”
“Never say that. That is a Matt-level meme. You should be ashamed of yourself, apologize to your parents, and consider seppuku.”
She sticks her tongue out instead.
“Since you clearly developed your dating behavior using pure reason, I assume you want to discuss religion? Or sexual expectations? Or how many kids we should have?”
He chokes on his water.
“I hope you're still in shape after all this time alone in your factory,” she adds. “Cardio is important.”
“Let's talk about religion,” he answers.
They carefully do not think about the Devourer. Or the Player, or the Glitch, or the effortless obliteration of their planet, or the Cult in Morse, or the entity that called itself “God,” or Snowflake, or the innumerable times they barely avoided death, or the maddening idiocy of NPCs, or the slow encroachment on their minds by primeval memories from forgotten iterations.
“I apologize,” he says.
“It's alright. I shouldn't have brought it up.”
They are silent until the appetizers arrive.
–
The waiter gives Anna her salad and put Lance's soup in front of him. It smells like a mass killing from an alternate universe where people are made out of seitan.
Anna apologizes for their earlier violation of procedure, and orders a rosé. Lance considers asking for a vodka, then decides on sobriety. He asks for “the most pretentious mocktail your ret—your customers can stand to drink.” The waiter leaves.
Lance looks at Anna's salad like he's looking at a cosmic monolith for the first time. Terrified, overwhelmed, appalled, mesmerized.
“See anything you like?”
“That isn't food.”
She takes a bite. He lets out a heavy breath.
“Wait, were you scared?”
“Of course not. That's absurd.” He was merely intellectually curious about the possibility that the plant was still alive, and carnivorous.
Lance's soup tastes like MSG, lava, and salt. He desperately needs the recipe. He drains it mechanically, filling the spoon entirely then tracing a careful path from the bowl to his lips, over and over.
Anna does not do that. She attacks her salad like a Viking axeman attacks his wife's secret lover, swipes and lunges and terrible jagged cuts driven by a furious desire to destroy. Her mouth shreds the greens like the CIA shredded MKUltra documents.
“Sorry,” she says after swallowing. “I was hungry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. Thought it was impressive. It's not Matt though.”
“It's not Matt.”
She finishes before he's halfway done. He continues to crane soup into his soup disposal chute.
–
“Hey, Lance.”
He chews on a particularly large lump of seitan.
“Hey, Lance.”
He swallows. It continues to be slightly spicier than he is comfortable with. He washes it down with a sip of water.
“Lance?”
The water level of the soup is sufficiently low that he considers changing consumption strategies. He decides against it. He lowers the spoon.
“Lance!!!”
“Yes?”
“Pay attention! I wanted to show you something cool.”
“I'm eating.”
“Still! What if there was an ambush?”
“Anna there are four arch blackmages in between us and the nearest exit from the building. If they attacked us we would die instantly. Fucking, FWOOSH, and we're gone. Any other enemy would need to breach a wall or ceiling. I have infrared vision of an eighty-meter circle around this building. HIGH FLYER artillery is on Readiness 4 and aimed at our location. No one is stupid enough to try a targeted assassination on only two of a five man team with revival capabilities. Also, your tone of voice wasn't alert, and you're more perceptive than me.”
“Ha! You admitted it!”
“Admitted what?”
“That I'm a better scout than you!”
“Obviously?”
“You always say machines are better at it though.”
“Of course they are. I thought we were talking about us as individuals.”
“Come on!”
“We've had this conversation before. The flyscout sees through walls.”
“That's a crutch!”
“Fucking-- do you even know what infrared light is?”
“It's the color regular stuff glows because it's too cold to glow in a color we can see.”
“That is,” he searches for a way to correct her, “exactly right.”
“Don't patronize me. Someday people are going to invent a all-light invisibility spell, and you're going to show up at my door weeping poisoned blood, and beg for me to help you fight whoever you recently pissed off on the internet.”
“Someday, people are going to cast silence and greater intangibility and attack us through the floor. Oh wait, that already happened. Three times.”
“Just you wait.”
“I unilaterally reserve the right to say 'I told you so' when this never happens. Also, did you have an actual reason for interrupting me?”
“Yeah. Look at the paintings!”
“Paintings suck. Stupid medium. Digital art is better.”
She can't tell if that's his actual opinion or if he's just provoking her. His eyes move towards some color-blotched modernist nonsense.
“Turn around. One-eighty.”
“How many radians is that again?”
“Lance you piece of shit I've seen you use degrees!”
He turns around.
“Like, twelve counterclockwise, that's, uh, π by 15 radians, and, uh, π by nine upwards.”
“That painting is extremely small, and indistinct.”
“You need glasses.”
“I don't need glasses.” He retrieves his electronic spyglass from his inventory, and examines the painting.
The Devourer is omnipresent, salmon flesh cutting off their escape across four corners. NoLegs dismantles dozens of its limbs in a single strike. Matt stands in front, holding a blessed blade in a low guard. Anna tends Matt's wounds and secures the cat's flank. Natalie, buffed and braved and blessed, declares Judgment on the demiurge, borrowing the sanctity of a very, very different God.
Small, wounded, and firing prone from a ditch in the blasted ground lays Lance. Emerging from the tip of his gun is something sick, hollow, and indiscriminate: elemental darkness, bubbling at its contact with air. It isn't even well-aimed: the trajectory would pierce through a mass of eye drones, miss the Devourer's mantle, and hit Matt. Whoever painted this clearly did not understand gun safety: never point a gun at anything you do not intend to destroy.
Or perhaps they understood it perfectly.
“I don't like it,” he says.
“What?!? Why?”
He does not say: because I look like a coward, because I look like a turncoat, because I seem to have less strategic impact than the cat who gets one-shot by a sore throat.
“It's inaccurate,” he chooses.
“It's not supposed to be accurate!”
“What's the point, then? If the objective is aesthetic value, I've seen better. It's not like the Devourer's death is an unpopular subject.”
“Exactly! It's a historical event, Lance! Do you not understand why I would care about that? To have an image of us like this, in some random restaurant? It means we're celebrities! Heroes! Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Celebrities are stupid, and heroes don't exist anymore.”
She grimaces at that, and looks down at her empty plate.
“Do you really think that, Lance?”
Sometimes, before something explodes, or melts, or fires shrapnel in his face, Lance will get a feeling like “something bad has happened here.”
Far more dangerous are the times he has had that feeling, and nothing has gone wrong. Each time this has occurred he has dismantled, retraced, and rebuilt the entire system from the ground up, and every time this has happened he has found an error that would have gone indefinitely undetected and silently ruined everything.
It seems we've succeeded in finding a controversial topic, he almost quips.
Instead, he disassembles the machine.
Anna mistakes the attentiveness and precision in his eyes for compassion.
“I guess it depends on how you define the word.”
“Don't get technical with me. It's... important.”
“I figured. That's why I'm being precise.”
She sighs. “Alright.”
“What do you think a hero is, Anna?”
“Someone who sacrifices themself for others,” she answers instantly.
“Soup kitchen workers are heroes?”
“That's not sacrificing yourself, Lance. That's sacrificing your time. It's not the same.”
“Okay.” He shrugs.
He considers the problem.
A hero could be a superhero, or a folk hero, or a culture hero, or a war hero. A person or a decision or a triumph or a tactic or a sacrifice could all be heroic. He considers looking up the definition, but the dictionary is full of feminist lies so he decides against it. A potion of heroism makes its drinker better at everything. Retreat can never be heroic, unless it's against overwhelming odds and with strategic intent to later reenter the fight.
“A hero is a courageous person who overcomes his tribe's enemies by exemplifying his tribe's values. This almost always requires danger, and usually some measure of self-sacrifice.”
“Tangible and clear as usual, Lance.”
“Thanks.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh.”
“I just...” she begins, and falters.
There is a silence. She gathers her thoughts into a corral, but they break through the fence.
“When your army first came near Greenwood no one paid attention because of all the terrain barriers. But the rivers were getting bridged and the trees were getting cut and the bush habitats were being burned to make space for your little dry-dirt roads and I only noticed it because the green bushes were moving around in weird places and their babies were coming out wrong, and one day I was bored and reckless enough to just decide to go wherever the bushes seemed to be avoiding and I saw the facility. And I went to my friends and I went to my teachers and I went to my parents and they wouldn't even pay attention to me, they wouldn't even walk from where they were standing or get of their seat to look where I pointed when I screamed at them 'I can show you, I can prove it, I can prove it, what the fuck is wrong with you' and back then I didn't really understand the pneumatic-psychic-NPC distinction so it really hurt, I really felt alone, and I guess I was, in retrospect. Obviously it was never that bad with my parents because they must have had the same experience during their adventuring days but they were somehow totally convinced that the problem would get solved, that someone else would do it, and in the end I guess they were right but obviously it didn't seem that way at the time and meanwhile all the animals are moving wrong and whenever the wind was east it smelled like smoke and some days it was so bad that the walls of Sarah's house would turn gray. And one day after I couldn't sleep because all night I was either too thirsty or I was crying I realized that Greenwood would be destroyed. It was just obvious. I would never understand those paper monsters in the library, all my friends would die or would become refugees and flee different places than me, and my parents would be a boss battle for your favored lieutenants, and I'd never have the really good peanuts they served at the steroid stand, and all the trees would burn down so I'd never have the chance to explore the canopy and my parents would be dead. So I cried some more and then I made myself breakfast and then I started assassinating your soldiers.
I guess I'm skipping around a bit but all the hesitation didn't really matter because even though I didn't start for a few days in retrospect I feel like I already knew I was going to start doing it after that first night. I was so alone, Lance, it was a nightmare. I was good enough at healing to survive a bullet that didn't hit a vital but the problem was while I was casting they could just fire at me again and again, I had never seen a gun that could do that, fire multiple bullets without replacing the powder I mean, I thought that was only in video games, and I had no combat casting experience then so the pain would have overwhelmed me and I would have died. And there was no one to give me coffee so the whole thing was rocket tag. I would wait for your soldiers to get bored and wander off, or for the new ones to get lost, or maybe they were supposed to be patrolling there I'm just noticing now I never figured out why your patrols were so disorganized, I guess you didn't consider us a threat, you were kind of right but anyways I wasn't a good enough shot at the time to disable someone's communication with a single arrow from a distance, so instead I had a homemade ghillie suit and I would hide, trip people, and slit their throats. It wasn't hard. Emotionally I mean. Tactically it was actually very complicated, because I was scared that if they screamed someone would look for them and they'd have coffee and I'd die, so I always had to garrote them, or make them think they just tripped on a rock until it was too late, or slash them from the front somehow even though I was shorter. I knew I was going to die, it was just a numbers game. It felt like playing an old arcade game, like Centipede, this sense of tension and straining yourself and paying perfect attention so you can keep avoiding the accumulating monsters that, eventually, eventually eventually eventually, will kill you. So after I killed them I had to dispose of the bodies so no one could coffee them, but I didn't know if you had access to revival spells so I couldn't just burn them, so I just piled them up in a big hole I found and I was planning to dice them up and throw the flesh and bone fragments in the lake but I never got around to it before Matt found me, and eventually we infiltrated the facility to find Natalie and we trashed your machines and your defenses and the workers saw it and decided not to get involved and we had more problems with the fucking electricity monsters. And we found Natalie and you cut us off and we fought you and we beat you.
And you look at me and you tell me with a straight face that there are no heroes when you carried yourself by the momentum of this stupid fucking machine you built, and I don't mean the Valkyrie, I mean all those starry-eyed young blonde boys with no dad you gave a purpose, who would have carried you on a palanquin if you asked, who would have held down a screaming girl for you to rape, who displayed just the right amount of aggression towards your research and development team that the scientists simultaneously felt more comfortable and respected than they had their entire lives, and also knew that if you did something horrible they could tell themselves that they were coerced, and then three people and a cat stopped you and I was one of them. You were in a fucking tank, with home field advantage and your men at our flank. We had a gamer with a hockey stick, an amputee cat, a red mage who quit school out of hots-for-teacher gone wrong, and me, and admittedly I am very fucking good with a longbow and I was on so little sleep that I'm pretty sure I was getting some kind of hallucination bonus to druidry, and we let you live because you and your goons were so comically ignorant and incompetent that it seemed like you didn't even know how to be fascists, or that you weren't even trying, and I almost felt bad about killing eight of them, but I didn't and also apparently we were being invaded by fucking aliens, and from then on it was key items and optional dungeons and capturing foes and forging equipment and backtracking and coming up with strategies with the stats from Matt's little scanning machine and doing these stupid little quests for stupid little people, I'm being unfair, some of them were quite reasonable and kind, but some of them like the guy who blew up his own house twice... I had to learn was an NPC was. All these strange and amazing things that I had no time or context to process because we had to blitz to get strong enough to handle the southern continent. And we made it and we had to fight Poseidon and I would have been on his side if I could have, the environment is slowly careening towards some final tragic ending and no one really cares, and it's not even like people are taking from Earth for their own benefit and I'm just some kind of species-traitor whiner, in reality it's just newsflash, if we poison all the oceans there'll be no fish to eat.”
Anna's head is in her hands. She is crying. She is still talking.
“And then it was the Devourer.
I guess it kind of makes sense, I guess, because, well I guess I don't really know, but the social sciences books in the Greenwood library always talked about how fascism is obsessed with this order but it's a perverted order, and stifling, and violent, and it has to pretend that its order is some kind of natural law, but honestly in retrospect I think those books are kind of stupid now because if you make something your enemy you can't ever really understand it, even if it truly is evil, and it's like how the Devourer wanted to remove everybody's free will and somehow it was terrible at it, didn't it create the universe? And it didn't even create the universe for an actual reason, it just wanted a “simulation” to enjoy the order of like looking at an elaborate lava lamp, and then it blew up everybody out of spite, and it all came back when he died and we had no idea that would happen, but what else was there to do besides kill him, sic semper tyrannis? God didn't want us to be alive, but he let us have brains. Incompetent, idiot tyrants. We're friends now though. I guess, I don't know how that happened, if this were a story you'd have secretly self-sabotaged your entire enterprise out of a mysterious suppressed conscience, but I've known you for years and you've learned to care about your friends and you've learned to apologize and you've developed principles and I made you read some of Greenwood's queer theory books, but you've never had a fucking conscience, you've obviously never had a fucking conscience. You have... conscience surrogates. I guess that's why were friends. I like you. I think you're hot, even. But if it weren't for the Devourer, I would have killed you. Slipped in your tent at night and dripped venom in your nose. Matt would have been sad, but Natalie and I would have explained it to him, and he would have understood, I think. I'm not even sure what I would have done after that. Going back to Greenwood would have been... hard. 'Yeah, I routed an invading army by knifing ambiguously military targets before they all surrendered, Mom could you make pancakes tomorrow?' But coming back after killing the Devourer was easy. It was heroic. They make paintings of us now, and they make me feel better, and sometimes children ask me to hug them, because 'I saved them.' I don't know if people even remember the Devourer deleting Earth.”
So we killed him. We killed god, and the other God... left, and Matt says the Player hasn't helped him since. So it's all on us now, and when it happens again it will be even harder to manage, and maybe it will be my kids shouting in my face when I'm middle-aged, smiling and peaceful. And they'll have to be even more heroic than I was, and we were all heroes, or we'll all die, or become slaves, or convert ourselves to emotionless machines, or something else I can't even imagine.”
They process that.
“I'm sorry,” he responds, because how else can he?
She sags. “I'm sorry for saying all that. I got, um, carried away.”
“No reason to apologize,” he says. “Precision is, uh, important.” He can't deliver the quip with the usual smug grin, but he can at least deliver it.
“Yes, there is.” Her head is in her hands. “I shouldn't have compared you to the Devourer.”
He shrugs. “It's not a great comparison, but it seems like you figured that out yourself. Clearly, no harm done.”
“I... alright. Thank you,”
He has no idea what she is thanking him for.
“You get it now, right? The... heroes thing?”
“Honestly, still no,” he says. “But I can take what you say and deduce from my definition that you're a hero. So there's at least one hero. Existence proof.”
“Thank you, Lance. That means a lot. And it's-- it's difficult, you know?”
He does not. He gestures for her to elaborate.
“Matt... doesn't get it. I guess you don't either. NoLegs gets it and he doesn't care, he just has a new lover every week. Natalie gets it.”
“What is 'it'?”
“It wasn't a video game. If we failed, everyone dies. And now we can fail, and it's normal, and it's safe, and it's... weird.”
Lance shakes his head. “Everyone dies anyways, Anna. That's the rules.”
“That's a way of looking at it, I guess. And-- I'm sorry you didn't like the painting.”
“I was... unfair,” he says. “I don't like how I look in it.” He forces out the most tolerably embarrassing adjective. “Disloyal.”
She squints. “Yeah, I guess I can see it. People do seem to think that of you.”
“That's fucking stupid.”
She smiles. “Yeah. I agree.”
She lets him finish his soup after that. When he does, the waiter brings out the bottles and the entrees.
--
When Anna raises her glass to toast, Lance does not realize for a full seven seconds, because he is still starting at her lentil roadkill mystery, trying to infer how it is supposed to taste. She puts his glass in his hand.
“To the future,” she says. Clink.
“And valor in its wars,” he adds. He drains half his water.
She downs her entire rosé. She pours herself another. Then she does it again.
“..Are you alright?”
“Was thirsty. And I have a strong liver.”
He has never seen her drink before, but he doesn't ask. It's not like it's hard liquor. He drains his rest of his glass, and pours himself half-full from her bottle.
“Thief!”
He does not want to be less tipsy than her. He feels quite gentlemanly. He even covers his hand with his napkin before taking a chicken wing and exploding it between his teeth.
Anna effortlessly dices the solid parts of her lentil enigma before mixing them back into the larger mash. Then she drops chunks of it into her mouth like dirt into a burial pit. Filling her stomach seems to reinvigorate her. Lance rotates his fake chicken wing π radians and severs the flesh from the other side.
They only give him ten wings for some reason, so the drop-off in quality compared to actual human food is mirrored rather than balanced by a drop in quantity. He needs a bucket.
“So I heard about this village recently,” he begins.
“Mmmm-hmm?” She responds through a mouthful of food.
“And in this village there's a father and a son--”
“Is this the joke where they call him a goat-fucker?”
“Fuck!”
“Knew it. Matt sent both of us that joke, Lance.”
“Wait, wait, I have another one. Let me think.”
“So a Catholic priest, a Baptist priest, and a rabbi were--?”
“Lance you can't tell jokes about Jews.”
“It's not an antisemitic joke. A Jew made it.”
“That doesn't mean you're allowed to repeat it!”
“That's stupid.”
“It's how it is!”
“That's not-- whatever. The joke isn't even antisemitic. It isn't about greed, or nose length, or cultural parasitism, or theocracy, or biting off children's foreskins--”
“Oh my god tell the joke, this is so much worse.”
“So a Catholic priest, a Baptist priest, and a rabbi met in a bar. They get drunk and they realize: converting people is actually pretty easy. You know what would really show whose religion was true? Converting a bear. So they all agree to go convert a bear and meet up again next week.
When they meet again, the Catholic has a limp, and he says, 'I climbed a tree and read the bear the Nicene Creed, and before I was halfway through he converted on the spot. Sprained my ankle when I fell out after, though.'
The Baptist has his arm bandaged and his leg in a cast, and he says, 'I found a bear near a river and starting wrestling him in. He scratched my arm and pinned my leg under me, but by then I had already baptized him and he was full of love for the Lord.'
The rabbi is in a full body cast and a wheelchair. He says, 'You know, in retrospect, I shouldn't have started with the circumcision.'”
She giggles.
“Alright, that was pretty good.”
“I have another one. So during--”
“Wait, wait. You'll like this one.
So a mathematician comes home to his wife one night, and she says to him, 'I'm so sorry honey, but I've been cheating on you with the neighbor. You're always so reliant on other's work to do your job for you, and I haven't seen you as masculine. But it isn't right. Come to the bedroom and let's make love.'
Then she notices that the mathematician is pulling out his phone. 'What are you doing?” She asks him.
'I'm calling the neighbor.'”
“I saw it coming.”
“Aw.”
“Okay, so during the Holo--”
“Aaaaand we're done. We're talking about something else. Anything else. Please.”
“Fine. Do you have more mathematician jokes?”
“Only a few one-liners.”
“Hit me.”
“Why does a mage's college always have a department of pure mathematics?”
“Because--”
“Because it's cheaper than a mental hospital.”
He laughs at that one. “Alright, alright, so Matt told me about this swordsmanship contest he entered.”
She wags her hand, as if to say, “and?”
“It turned out to be a dexterity competition, so he got crushed. But after the tournament, the winners were all invited to show off their skills publicly.
The third place guy was an Indian sword eater. When it's his turn, he takes out a small box, and a bee flies out of it. With a single swipe of his sword, the bee gets cut in half.
The second place guy was a samurai. He takes out an even smaller box, and a mosquito flies out. With a single swipe of his sword, the mosquito gets cut in half.
The first place guy is a frumpy-looking man in a strange hat. He takes out an even smaller box, and an aphid flies out. With a single sword of his sword, …nothing happens.
The audience gasps. “Why didn't it die?” Someone yells.
And he says, 'Oy vey. If it died, what kind of mohel would I be?'”
“What's a mohel?”
“Jewish guy who does circumcision.”
“Oh! Haha, he circumcised it!”
“Yes, thank you for explaining the joke, Anna.”
“Well it needed an explanation.”
He takes another fake chicken wing, and they re-enter normality. Most of the jokes aren't very funny.
–
She finishes before him again, despite having had an entree twice the size. He continues to complains internally about the restaurant's profane lack of chicken buckets. He has two wings left. He puts one half of the 6/10 imitation chicken in his mouth.
“Can we talk about something serious, for a moment?” Anna asks.
Please do not ask about the Temple, he thinks.
He nods.
“What's your objective here?”
He swallows, and clears his throat. “What do you mean?”
“What's the objective of this date? You said earlier you were feeling 'goal-oriented.' What's the goal?”
This, Lance recognizes, is a terrible situation to admit ignorance.
“What's the objective of any date?”
“Don't get smart, bomber boy. How do you feel about me? It's wrong to play with a pretty young girl's heart, you know.”
If life were one of Natalie's otome games, he would have four options of what to say here instead of facing the paralysis of infinity. And three of those four would be fucking stupid so that he could use process of elimination.
1: I want to marry you just so I have something to do every day.
2: You are one of two women who have ever respected me as a individual and I'm horny and lonely .
3: I want you to wring from me the kind of release after which I need a Revive. I want you to liquefy my fingers with your canines. I want you to drink my blood.
4: ?????? attractive normal person jackpot ??????
What peg goes in that hole? He welds together pieces of the truth until they form the right shape.
“I care about you,” and when he says it he knows it is true. “And we are friends,” which he is pretty sure is true. (He wants it to be true.) “And I find you physically attractive,” which he is very certain is true.
He concludes, “I don't know if that implies something specific. Not my field of expertise.”
“Honestly, it sounds like you're offering me a friends-with-benefits type thing.”
“No. That shit is degenerate.”
“Really? I think it's kind of hot. Have you met our party members?”
“Anna, I am straight and Natalie would spread my ashes on the wind before touching me.”
“Matt is hot.”
“I have seen Matt lick days-old bacon grease off of his own sweatpants. Also, this is an egregious double standard. If I said that about Natalie we'd have separate checks.”
That startles her. “That—that's different.”
“Yeah, it is. The fact remains that Matt is attractive until he opens his mouth.”
She barks. “Hah! That's exactly what people say about you in Greenwood!”
“I'm flattered.”
“Show me your tongue.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
Lance sticks out his tongue like a doctor is about to depress it.
“Congratulations! You're still cute. You should floss more, though.”
“Wow, thanks. Fuck you.”
She sticks her tongue out at him again, and winks.
“Finish your food, and you're paying the check. The sunset's in fifteen minutes.”
-
To the a north is a little hill overlooking the trees, from which one can watch the sunset.
It is occupied.
Anna takes them to a different, slightly uglier hill.
Anna lays down facing the sun. Lance sits down next to her.
They start speaking at the same time.
“This--”
“I don't understand why people watch sunsets,” Lance says.
“--what?”
“They're all the same.”
“No they're not!”
“Approximately.”
“They-- okay, fine, whatever. People watch them because they're beautiful.”
“Then why do they watch them exactly once a day? They could watch sunsets on loop for hours straight with a recording.”
“It's different if it's a recording! And I don't watch the sunset every day!”
“The visual stimulus is no different with modern recording equipment. The fact that people don't do this implies they value sunsets for something other than beauty.”
“Lance, when I mentioned beauty, you're supposed to give me a compliment.”
“Anna, I hope you don't share Natalie's taste in media. I'm not that tacky.”
“You don't have to say something stupid!”
“It is impossible to use celestial bodies to compliment a woman's appearance without sounding retar–“
“'You look good in this light.'”
“Thank you Anna, I'm flattered.”
“You—ugh! Just give me the compliment already!”
“Is this a fetish thing?”
“It's not a fetish if everybody has it!”
“Fine.” Lance recites the following like a grocery list: “You are athletic, symmetrical, and agile. In this environment, in this outfit, you look like a living mural.”
“Work on your delivery!”
“Welfare recipients can't be choosers.”
“It's like you're not even trying to get in my pants!”
“A true master succeeds without effort.”
“Left myself open to that one.”
“Exactly.”
She blushes.
The sun is slightly lower than it was before.
“Lance, do you actually want to date me? As in, to have a serious relationship?”
His tone is curious and speculative, as if he is equally ignorant of his own thought processes. “I enjoy being your friend. Friends-with-benefits are garbage, so use process of elimination. And there's substantial evidence beyond that.”
“Why?”
“Is this the part where you're performatively insecure?”
“No! I mean that we're not really compatible, like, at all. I was going to kill you.”
“You didn't.”
“Lance, you want to burn down all the forests and cover the land in factories.”
“That's a misconception. Most land use is agricultural, and I wouldn't burn down all the forests, only most. Biodiversity is useful because it yields difficult-to-manufacture organic compounds.”
“Thinking like that is basically exactly what I mean.”
“Pragmatism?”
“Hubris.”
“We killed god, Anna.”
“We didn't kill God.”
He shrugs.
“Lance, you just... you think the world is an optimization problem, and it's kind of intolerable. You don't understand what a sunset is good for. You've never gone on a date, and are totally disinterested in romance.”
“You're only interested in people with the same ideology as you?”
“No! The fact that you don't get it is part of the problem! You're missing something Lance. I understand why Matt doesn't have it, his parents left him as a kid and he had nobody, he ate raw seafood and played video games all day. But you don't have that excuse.”
He thinks about that.
“Yeah,” he says. “That sounds accurate.”
Anna turns towards him, surprised.
“But minimalist design is a pretty good paradigm.” He continues. “And I've gotten pretty far without 'it', and no one can even tell me what 'it' is, and in the time lacking 'it' saved me I invented half of modern manufacturing. I don't know if sunsets are some kind of dealbreaker for you, but if so, so be it. Better not to waste time on something fundamentally flawed.”
“That's... an understandable perspective.”
“It's a frustrating position to be in. If you make it actually clear what you want, Anna, I can probably give it to you.”
“Things aren't always unambiguous like that. That's not how people work, Lance. That's not how I work. That's the problem.”
“I spend seven hours a day solving problems. I have practice.”
“What if you fail?”
“Then I can give up. No harm done, unless you blow up my factory or something.”
“That's—true. If you're trustworthy, I mean. Which you sort of are?”
She thinks on it, then smirks at him.
“Alright, Mr. Problem Solver. Give me a compliment. A real one, genuinely.”
“Let me think,” he says.
He takes on a certain tone of voice that takes a moment for Anna to pinpoint. It's a tone that says, “I'm explaining something to you as if you're intelligent but ignorant. I don't want to have to remove 'intelligent' from that.”
“Natalie is significantly more conventionally attractive than you.”
“Wow—”
“I wasn't finished.”
“I have spent the last three years of my life interacting near exclusively with two women, a man, and a cat. I previously thought that the idea that social relationships influence physical attractiveness was feminist cope. Being precise, it is. It is also true. You are the most attractive person I know, with respect to attracting me in particular. Looking at you calls to mind your energy, trustworthiness, and prowess, and this alters my view of you sufficiently that I want to clutch at you like a rare-earth metal. Occasionally when I look at you I salivate.” He should have rephrased that last part.
Anna blushes a visible pink.
“Are you going to eat me?” She jokes.
“Cannibalism gives people horrible diseases.”
“That was flirting. You're supposed to do it back.”
“I would, but I'm not sure you're not a cannibal.”
“You're joking.”
“Yes.”
She laughs.
“Alright, fine. Let's try it. But if it doesn't work out, we're still friends. You don't get to save the world twice. And don't do something horrible, like, I don't know, I can't even imagine, so that we can't be friends anymore.”
He shrugs. “You all know me well. If it doesn't occur to you, I probably wouldn't do it.”
“When was the last time you smoked?”
“11:54.”
She gets up.
She sits on his lap, facing him. She kisses him. He knew this was going to happen when she asked that question. He is still unprepared.
He does not know where he's supposed to put his hands. He does not know what to do with his mouth. He thinks he is supposed to close his eyes?
She retreats. “Oh my god I should have thought about what it means that you've never done that before.”
“No comment.”
“Lance, for Godcat's sake, warn a woman in advance! That was... impactful.”
“Fuck you.”
“Maybe another time. Right now, you need remedial lessons. Okay, rotate your head--”
“I could leave, right now.”
“You won't. I'm too cute.”
“I'll do it out of spite.”
“I dare you.”
“I'm far too intelligent to succumb to peer pressure, so I'm staying.”
“Then rotate your head and open your mouth! Wait, actually, let's watch the sunset first.”
They watch the sunset. They figure it out.
-
“And don't go telling everyone I'm your girlfriend! I'm not your girlfriend. We went on one date!”
He writes this down. “Understood. So next time we'll be discussing sexual expectations and preferred number of children, as a secondary filter.”
“Yeah, exactly. No, don't write that down! It's a metaphor!”
“I was mocking you.”
“Fuck you!”
“Is that on the itinerary?”
“Absolutely not!”
-
“REVERSE_PSYCHOLOGY IS A_BITCH.”