Date Point: 16y6m AV
Bryant Park, Manhattan, New York, USA, Earth
Vemik Sky-Thinker
Humans. Humans everywhere. Walking so tightly packed that they almost touched, driving cars so close together he had no idea how they didn’t crash. Just as they drove from the jump array to a place called a ‘park,’ Vemik had seen more humans than there were Ten’Gewek in all the world.
They were moving busily through their lives and working their weird magic, and he didn’t understand even one finger of what he was seeing. How they made steel and stone reach higher than Ketta, or the lights, the assault of tastes on the air, the people walking around with hair in bright colours that couldn’t be natural, or with marks on their skin and clothes that moved, or…
There were some angry humans with signs. The car rolled past them, pretty quick, but not quick enough to stop Vemik from reading the signs.
“ET GO HOME!”
“QUARANTINE EARTH AGAIN”
“DECOLONIZE THE TEN’GEWEK”
Weird.
The last two days had been fun, though! Despite the way his last visit to Earth had gone, Vemik had always wanted to come back, and this time he got to bring the Singer with him… and to his delight she’d brought their son, Vemun.
The boy was being kind of quiet, and clinging to the Singer closely with one arm while hugging his tail for comfort with the other, but Vemik couldn’t really blame him. This place, this ‘New York’ was loud, and busy.
And huge!
One odd thing was that, among all this steel and stone and glass and people, the humans had set aside a huge space for trees! The noise of the city never went away of course, and the sky was always lit by the glow of their ‘electric’ lights…
But it was nice to see. Even here, in a place where ‘civilization’ was at its most intense, the Humans spent a lot of their valuable space to show proper respect to nature. None of the trees were as big as a Ketta, but the oldest and biggest of them were grand, strong things anyway.
The Singer had approved heartily. They’d both tried their hand at a fun-looking game called ‘baseball,’ which was apparently part of the joke of Baseball’s name. The small skinny children playing it were much better at it, but they had fun nonetheless. Not even Jooyun was as good as them! There was another game called ‘frisbee’ which was about throwing a thin bendy disc and trying to catch it. That was a lot more fun, and Vemik got to show off a little for the kids, and the Singer met a ‘choir’ who wove their voices into something that shimmered in the air…
But sadly, the fun times couldn’t last. There was much to see in New York, including meeting some important people, going to a ‘museum’ which Vemik wanted to explore top to bottom…
The ‘hotel’ was a bit strange and the bed so soft it felt like he would sink right through. It complained loudly when either he or Jooyun sat on it though, so Vemik decided to be nice and pull the top part off and just put it right on the floor. Much better.
Apparently, it was not okay to climb up the side of the hotel, even if it was nicely easy to grip and their room was wonderfully high up. Something about “King Kong,” apparently. There was definitely a joke there at his expense he’d need to squish out of Jooyun later.
Not enough time to see and do everything he wanted. And everyone was friendly!
Except these people with their big writing on very big paper. They made Heff go still and watchful, too.
“Are those the same people who attacked us in ‘Canada’?”
“Prob’ly not. But they think a lot of the same things,” Jooyun decided. He didn’t sound like he liked them at all. “These ones are just regular activists.”
“Means what?” the Singer asked.
“Means they think very strongly that something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but people can get blinded when they feel something so strong.”
“Worth watchin’, though,” Heff grunted. “These ones might be all talk an’ no action, but you never know.”
Their car stopped in front of a new kind of building that Vemik hadn’t seen before. It was white, with thick carved stone tree-trunks along the front and stone humans in strange loose clothes high on the walls. It looked very climbable, but somehow he just knew that this building was absolutely not for climbing at all.
“You’ll like this place,” Jooyun declared.
“What is it?”
“The New York Public Library. A place where we keep knowledge and people can read it.”
“Professor tell me about libraries!”
“Uh-huh. Uh, just so you know, you normally keep quiet in these places. And no offense, but you have a loud, deep voice. It carries.”
“I’ll be quiet,” Vemik promised.
As it happened, the moment he set foot inside he knew he’d have no trouble keeping his word. The place felt… sacred. It was a subtle feeling, but there was a hush, and a solemn feeling on the air that the people from the ‘teevee show’ with their cameras and tiny drones couldn’t spoil no matter how closely they watched.
The sacred feeling only really hit though when they had climbed high in the building and entered a space like nothing Vemik had ever seen. The Singer made an awed sound and stopped: Vemik simply gaped.
There were books everywhere. Stacked neatly in rows down the long walls, or dotted here and there on the ornate tables as Humans pored over them under the light from a hand of hands of intricate metal frames. Everywhere around him were beautiful carved wood and stone: the tables, the ceiling, the walls… everything. The craftmanship of them was just…
Vemik knew wood-carving, and stone-working. Or he thought he had. What he was seeing hurt him a little, though: Deep in his chest and belly, he knew that his people would never build something like this. Not because they couldn’t, but because… this was a very Human place. They’d built it not just to store knowledge, but to worship it. It could only be here because there was a great hive of a city outside its walls, because the Humans had settled here hundreds of years ago and never moved on.
That was not the Ten’Gewek way. And as proud as he was of his people and how these incredible people from another world valued them… The Gods had made the People for other things than this. They would never build something to match it.
For a brief moment, that thought made him very, very sad.
But behind that, he realized he now knew more than ever just how much the People needed this friendship. They could not build a place like this, and if he was right they never would… but the Humans already had, and they were happy to share it.
With that thought to lift his mood, he moved towards some of the tall book-stacks almost without thinking, but Jooyun’s hand rested on his shoulder to stop him.
“Careful, fella. You can look at these all you want, but we’re here for a tour and to take some footage. Let’s get that done first, okay? You’ll still get to read some things, though. The librarian’s been planning this for a while.”
“Lie-brare-ee-an.”
“Yeah. Which means…”
“Someone…who takes takes care of a library?”
“Very good!” somebody said. Vemik turned: He’d seen Humans in fancy clothes before, and thought they looked strange but the newcomer seemed oddly right for them. He was short, small, didn’t have much hair, and his glasses were just as big as his smile. Vemik had heard the word ‘dapper’ before, but now he finally knew what it meant. All those layers looked heavy and warm, not good for the forest. And he had no idea what the blossom of bright red cloth on the man’s throat was for…
But, well, he was on Earth, and he hadn’t actually met many Humans. Maybe this was normal, and Jooyun was the weird one. Who knew?
“Mister Etsicitty,” he said warmly, and shook Jooyun’s hand at length. “Sven Schuster, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. And these are our guests?”
He reserved an extra special smile for Vemun, who was chewing on his tail and giving him the wide-eyed wary look that children of any species kept for meeting a stranger, then shook first the Singer’s hand and then Vemik’s.
“We’ve never had extraterrestrial guests before,” he said.
“We have never been in a place like this before,” the Singer replied. She hiked Vemun a little higher on her hip and held him in place with her tail. “Not just the books and all the knowing there is here but the…”
She paused, then waved a hand at absolutely everything around them as she turned to Jooyun. “Is there a word for all this?” she asked.
“Architecture.”
“Hmm. Odd word. Don’t know if it’s big enough.”
Shoo-ster (Vemik decided immediately that he’d have trouble fitting ‘Sven’ around his teeth) chuckled. “I agree. It’s a fussy word for grand things, isn’t it?”
“Grand, yes.” The Singer tasted that word, and gave it a soft hoot of approval. “I like ‘Grand.’”
“So many books!” Vemik sighed appreciatively. “More than I could ever read, maybe! But this library is so big and this is just one room! This isn’t all, is it?”
Shoo-ster beamed happily. “Oh, no! We have millions of items in our collection, Sky-Thinker. Not just books but maps, records, newspapers, old documents… They’re kept in stacks in the levels below. This is just a reading room.”
“Really?! Can we see??”
Jooyun chuckled. “Sorry, fella. That’s not for the public, and anyways you and I would be way too big to fit. But don’t worry, the Professor is going to set up a library exchange with Folctha, so you will have access to all the books from places like this.”
“Really?!” Several nearby readers looked up and shot amused glances at them, and Vemik cringed. His excitement had beaten the air of the place after all. “Really?” He whispered.
“Yup. For now though, we’re just here to meet and greet. You can each check out one book to read tonight, okay?”
“…Okay…”
Vemik decided on an enormous picture book about the plants and animals on this part of Earth. Singer checked one out too, and Jooyun’s was something about ‘code-talkers,’ whatever they were.
Heff got a book about weightlifting.
It made for a quiet night back at the hotel. Once Jooyun explained that they’d have to give the book back, Vemik threw himself into it, and then read the Singer’s for good measure after she was done with it. Hers was a book on healing, full of pictures about how to clean and dress a wound, splint a broken bone and sling an arm. All things that Singers did anyway, but as always the Humans had just… been doing it for longer. They knew a few extra tricks.
The ‘teevee’ show the next day was very, very weird. They were ‘shooting’ in the smaller park in front of the library, after returning their books and dodging the protestors, who were just the beginning of the rush that followed. Everything about the show was hurry-up, be here, stand there, wait before talking, do all the talking in barely a finger of time…
The Humans were wearing ‘makeup’ because apparently, ‘teevee’ cameras could make even a very pretty person look ugly under those lights, which were just much, much too bright. They were careful not to shine them into anyone’s eyes, and it was outside during the day, so it wasn’t too bad really, but still… the heat coming off them reminded Vemik of being back in his forge.
It was all a little confusing. Apparently millions of Humans were watching them ‘live,’ and the weird timing was because like so much the Humans did, everything was on a ‘schedule.’
They were showing some very simple things about village life. Apparently, this would help some of the more nervous Humans like them more. Heff stood off to the side: he was there to protect them, not to be on teevee. but Jooyun and Singer were right there with Vemik, knapping a simple flint blade and preparing a fire. Jooyun had been slightly unhappy with everything until they were doing the ‘dem-on-stray-shun’ for the cameras. He was out of his suit and the hated ‘tie,’ and was now much more comfortable like he was back on Akyawentuo, knife in hand and talking animatedly about why they did every little thing, exactly like they were teaching a child.
Which they were, in fact. Vemun was paying rapt attention to the three of them and trying to knock a flake off his own core. He especially paid attention to Jooyun’s hands. Strange. In some ways, Vemik thought Jooyun might be more like the People than a Human.
There was one of those weird breaks, suddenly, where the host promised the people watching they’d be right back.
“And…we’re off-air. That was brilliant!” She enthused, “Did you three decide to teach Vemun like that?”
“Why waste a good opportunity?” Jooyun replied. “…Hey, it’s a really hot day. Could we get some water, please?”
No sooner had he asked than a bustling somebody pressed a bottle into his hand and then vanished on some other errand.
“–Oh! Uh, thanks!” he called after whoever it was. “…That was fast, dang.”
“Show-biz, Mister Etsicitty! We’ve got, uh, ninety seconds. The next segment will be seven minutes long, not the little teaser segments we’ve been doing. You’ve got your speil ready?”
“Yeah! Then we do some fun up in the trees after that, right?”
“Yes. We put your notes up on cue cards for you–Mark there will hold them up for you. You don’t need to read off them, it’s just to help you remember what you’re talking about, just like we discussed.”
“…Okay. Prompt, not read.”
“Exactly! Don’t worry Julian, you’re a natural at this. Thirty seconds warning, see that? Make-up will be here–” a flock of Humans descended on the two of them and did…something… “And you might want to wash your hands, they’re muddy. There’s a spot on your shirt too, can we fix that?”
“Fifteen seconds,” somebody else called. A figure with a bright orange stick of some kind rubbed the spot off Jooyun’s shirt and then ducked down and aside as quick as he’d appeared.
“Ten!”
“Okay, last check–”
Somebody gently guided Vemik, Vemun and the Singer away to one side. Apparently the next bit was for Jooyun only. That suited Vemik just fine: learning to knap a flint properly was hard enough without lots of interruptions, so he was glad to give his child a bit more time to knock on his core and ask questions.
As they stepped aside, however, something… itched at him. Something was wrong, and not in the weird alien strangeness-of-Humans way. As Jooyun and the host started talking to the camera again, Vemik’s instincts were telling him something was up. And considering that he could still hear the chanting from the sign-people over the street noises and traffic…
He looked around. Godshit, there were so many people. None of them looked like they were about to attack, but he just couldn’t set aside the crawling feeling, or the way his crest naturally rose and fluffed out a bit.
The Singer noticed. “…Something wrong?”
As he turned to reply, it finally dawned on Vemik what was bothering him. Something—or rather someone—was missing.
“…Where’s Heff?” he asked.
Date Point: 16y6m AV
Window overlooking Bryant Park, Manhattan, New York City, USA, Earth
Wilhelmina “Bill” Briggs-Davies
Bill’s nest was a good spot alright. She’d been smuggled in at dead-o’-clock in the darkest scrotal recess of the night, and fuck had that been slick. She hadn’t seen her escort’s face, but the fucker knew how to make locks sing and dance, that was for sure. Not just mechanical ones, either.
After that… the waiting game, made a bajillion times worse by the fact that she couldn’t just put her head down and sleep. Who coulda? If all went to plan…
…Fuck. If all went to plan, she was gonna be dead before most people had even had their breakfast. That was… big. In the dark and the quiet, as she waited for the city to get a little more lively, that one thought had really just landed on her, heavily.
She wasn’t scared. Shit, she was actually kinda looking forward to it. Most of the poor fuckin’ sheep out there just kinda drifted unconsciously until the end caught them by surprise, but Bill had known the date and manner of her demise for weeks. She’d had plenty of time to straighten things out. ‘Cuz she sure as shit wasn’t gonna die quietly.
Her one last ‘fuck you’ at everything was gonna be goddamn historic.
So she didn’t sleep. She woulda liked to have a phone with her or something, to pass the time, but no. She had nothing in her pockets, nothing on her to tie her to anyone. Just a rifle, a pistol, her stompiest boots, some makeshift armor sewed into her clothing…
…And way too much time to kill. Too fucking bad her Handler had “sanitized” her safe house and taken away all the evidence. She woulda liked to have that surveillance of her target in the shower, to help her pass the time…
Her encrypted radio finally started making noises just before dawn.
“Party vans are on the road. How’re you doing, birthday girl?”
She keyed her mic. “I’m bored outta my mind, here.”
“Understood. Nobody’s late, the guest of honor has RSVP’d. Don’t spoil the surprise.”
Rather than say she understood, she just clicked it and slumped down next to the window to keep waiting.
Dawn came eventually, along with the usual NYC slice of life, commuters and pedestrians and yellow cabs. The all-dick-and-no-balls squad with their stupid fucking signs and chants showed up half an hour before the vans from CBS, and half an hour after that there came Etsicitty and the monkeys, who vanished into the Schwarzman Building. Good little boy scouts had to return their library books…
There was nothing to do but keep her head down and wait, but she decided to give an update.
“The guest of honor just arrived.”
“Good. Keep me posted.”
The show started on schedule. It was actually kinda hypnotic, watching the ballet going on down there. Turned out there were a lotta people involved in sending out live breakfast TV, and every one of them knew exactly where they had to be, what they had to do.
Fuck, if they turned that energy to something useful they maybe coulda even achieved something. Too late now. Bill stayed low and in the corner of the window so as not to show a humanoid silhouette, and watched until…
Yup. There were Etsicitty and the monkeys, doing their boy scout survival bullshit on the ground. Where they actually making flint knives?
She grabbed the rifle, and keyed her radio.
“The guest’s ready. How we doing?”
“Party vans are in position. They’re going to an advert break in two minutes. Party time is right after they go live again.”
“Awesome.” Fucking fantastic. Millions of people were gonna see Julian’s brains get blown out in high definition, live to the whole world.
The commercial break started, and Bill grinned as she took aim.
It was gonna be a pretty clean shot, in the end. She’d been worried about the trees at the park’s edge, but Etsicitty was standing in clear open ground and she had a perfect line of sight. The only thing spoiling it was the makeup bitches swarming all over his face.
“…Fuck. Kind of a waste to splatter a pretty fuckboy like him…” she muttered, as she tried to get a better angle.
“Don’t get sentimental on me now. Twenty seconds to party time.”
Bill nodded, shifted her weight, and growled to herself as some other dipshit swept in to spot-clean him with a Tide pen. This sniping shit wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be.
“Ten seconds. Vans on final approach.”
The vans had two jobs: block the escape routes, and raise hell. No stupid fuckin’ baseball bats and shit this time, this time the APA had sprung for guns. When the party started every poor fucker in the park was gonna be caught in the crossfire. They were about to stack a lot of bodies.
Fuck, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was knocking on her ribs, and she stared unblinking down the scope with her teeth bared in a clenched, delighted rictus. This was it.
She settled the dot perfectly on Etsicitty’s head, right as the commercial break ended.
“…Gotcha, asshole.”
Her finger tightened on the trigger, and the party started with a bang.