#maybe it's about something changing YOU which makes you able to parse the garbage noise

[carlyraejepsans]

QUESTION. anyone who speaks/can read japanese noted anything about the weird phonecalls kris receives at the manor and at the end of chapter 4? it's a bit broken up from our perspective, but I can't tell if it's because the audio is too low or the person themself is struggling to get the words out. AND the speaker specifically says "I'm coming over" so i assume we'd have a first person pronoun

[kitkat1003]

Who Are You Really?

Spirit Masterpost (Ao3 link there)

Chapter 2: Find A Way In

Summary: This town's got quite the cast of characters

Spirit spends the next couple of months on reconnaissance.  They hop over rooftops and monitor the town where the supposed successor lives.  They hadn’t had the time to ask for a description after getting their orders from the Demon Bull Family, and they’re afraid to go back to the trio with their query.

Something about that home is broken. Spirit has spent enough time in a broken home to know it’s not a nice place to be in for long.  Best to stay away unless they’re needed.

The town that the successor lives in is pretty lively. They only assume this is where the successor lives, though, because the successor had arrived to fight Demon Bull King rather quickly and would likely need to be close by.

They watch the city from the rooftops.  Bright colors, people, loud noises—they would hate to be down there, lost in the madness, but from a far enough distance it’s tolerable.

The people are so...loud.  There’s so much stuff here.  So many things, sights, sounds.  It’s awful pretty, especially the glowing stuff.  Spirit tries touching it, but it’s really hot. Whatever it is, it burns.

They’re sitting on top of a skyscraper, taking a break with some cheese tea they got because they were curious about it, when the sky shifts.  The weather begins changing without reason.  That gets them to jump down, because it sounds like a storm is brewing and the higher up you are the more likely you are to be hit by lightning.  Getting hit by lightning does not sound appealing.

They duck down into an alleyway, shifting into human form just as Red comes onto the myriad screens all over the city.  

Spirit has to give him credit, it’s certainly a foreboding speech.  They don’t do well when giving speeches.  Often when they’re sent to intimidate or kill they either write up a script on their way there or stay silent.  Whichever is more effective, anyway.

They lean against the wall as mortals panic, pulling out their nifty little phone.  It’s sturdy, which is good, since they can be a bit clumsy with their things.

‘Red’ They type out.  They gave him their number when they got a phone, excited to have one.  He’d texted them a lot of boxes.  They don’t know what the boxes mean, but they hope they’re nice.

‘I heard your speech up on the screens!  It was very articulate and polite, and threatening!  I think your dad will be mighty impressed with you.

Do you need my assistance?  Please let me know.  I’m in the area, so I can come quickly!

From,

Spirit’

They rock back and forth on their feet, turning their head to the side and watching as the mortals all vanish into their buildings, the streets becoming empty in minutes.  Spirit has to admire the speed of it.  Maybe they got more vigilant after the attack by Demon Bull King.  It’s only been a few months since the attack, long enough to set in some sense of safety but short enough that they would still be on edge.  Spirit knows the timeline of overcoming traumatic experiences.  They start to fade out of the forefront after about half a year if you’re lucky.

Their phone buzzes.  It’s from Red!

They blink at the deluge of boxes, using the little arrow buttons on their phone to scroll down.

‘i don’t need anyone!  Thnx for the compliment’

Spirit blinks a few times, and shrugs.  Red never is very eloquent in text form, and they’ve heard that brevity is the soul of wit!  Whatever that means.  Spirit isn’t quite sure.  Plus, they can understand the desire to do everything by yourself, especially when you’re doing something to prove yourself to someone.

Since the town is pretty much deserted, Spirit takes the time to walk around, get to know the place.  They know it plenty from a bird’s eye view, but whenever you scope out a territory it’s best to know all the angles.  They trace the different side streets with their eyes and memorize the street signs.  They might make a diagram, to make sure the layout sticks in their head.

They’re pretty calm, until they feel the ever ethereal power that comes only from one source.

The Monkey King.

Something like primal terror freezes them in place for a split second, before they race away running as far away from the outpouring of heavenly power that comes with the Monkey King’s presence.  They can’t even think about where they’re going, feet pressing hard against the messy street pavement. T, crunching on glass and debris without thought because they just need to get away.  They know who Monkey King is. They know that they would mean nothing to such a monarch, to such a being.  They have no favors to spare, nothing to keep themself safe, so why wouldn’t he jump on the chance to get rid of them?

Considering their reputation, considering the times they’ve colluded with Monkey King’s enemies, there’s no reason to believe he’d let them live, if he saw them.  No reason to think that he wouldn’t leave them a bloody stain on the pavement the moment they appeared in his line of sight.

Or worse, he’ll \tear out an eye for your insolence.  He clearly doesn’t have a problem pulling out organs, from what you’ve heard in the stories, and with what he did to Macaque?  He’ll ruin you.  Well, at least you’d finally have a normal amount of eyes, right? 

Their breaths come in short bursts.  They climb up to the roof of a short building, curled into a little ball, and shut their eyes.

They don’t manage a single normal breath until they feel the energy of the Monkey King fade out.  He must have left, back to his mountain.  Good.  That means they won’t die today, which really is something!  Every day they manage to live is kind of a surprise, really.  They’re consistently shocked by their ability to keep going.

They carefully sit up and glance down at their feet.  Bleeding, apparently.  Not a surprise, given how they weren’t careful when sprinting through the street, but annoying nonetheless.  They pull out the pieces of glass, clean off the wound with some antibiotic ointment they keep on them at all times (Mom used to make it herself with stuff they scavenged in the forest, and now you can buy an even better version in the store for cheap), and wrap their feet in gauze.

Once that’s done, they lay back, spread eagle on the roof, staring up at the cloudy sky as they try to regulate their breaths.  They’re not exactly steady yet, but at least now they can breathe.  Soon, though, the sky clears, and Spirit has to squint to keep the sun from burning their retinas.  Their phone buzzes in their pocket, and they pull it out, holding it up so the shadow of it falls over their face, blocking the sun a little.

‘The garbage noodle boy will pay!’

They type out a reply.

‘Red.

I don’t know who the noodle boy is, but I’m sorry he made you upset.  Did you have to leave the weather tower?  Do you need anything?

Let me know!

Spirit.’

They get a bunch of boxes and a very hard to follow explanation, but eventually they parse it out.  Noodle boy is the nickname Red has for Monkey King’s successor, and apparently he came in and kicked Red out of the weather tower.  

Spirit asks if Red needs help with his next scheme, but Red declines.  That’s fine.

Spirit knows when they aren’t wanted.

As the sky clears, people begin to peer out their windows, and a few brave souls actually leave their homes.  Within an hour, the city is back to its bustling state, if a little slow as it tries to reset from the panic.  Spirit watches this happens with a fascination one would have with watching ants build a colony.  Well, not in the sense that mortals are just like ants, but they are simple in many ways and complicated in others.  Peril is unknown to them in a way Spirit never could understand, and to see them grapple with the appearance of it and work it into their community and lives is ever fascinating.  Mortals are very tight knit, after all.  Everything affects the collective.

Demons are typically solitary creatures.  They create small clans, sure, but they do not settle, create towns for themselves.

Spirit flits between the different factions and never settles themself.  They have a few caves that could become homes, if they stayed, but they never do.  Not when there are favors to hand out, places to explore.  Besides, an empty home isn’t a fun one to return to.

They’re about to head out, disappear into the forest areas outside of the town for the night, but the roof door to the building opens.

“Hey,” comes a gruff voice.

Spirit freezes.  They turn their head around, slowly, eyes wide.

The figure that stands before them is a stout pig demon, wearing what appears to be a chef’s coat.  He’s got stubble, sharp blue eyes, and small tusks that peek out over his upper lip.  He stares at them without animosity.  Mostly interest and confusion.

Spirit, at a glance, suspects that they’d be able to take him, should he attack.  A second glance, more a read of a soul, proves otherwise.  Whoever this is, there’s a power they’re hiding.  A lot of power.

“Don’t see a lot of monkeys around here,” The demon says.

“Sorry,” Spirit replies, immediately.  “I-uh-I didn’t know this was your roof, I was just sitting up here for the view-I-I’m leaving, so—”

They don’t want to get in a fight.  There’s no point in trying to throw on glamour, appearing human.  And they don’t know how to really explain themselves, either.

The demon raises his hands in a peaceful gesture, trying to put Spirit at ease.  It doesn’t exactly work, considering it reveals the demon’s claws.  Dull as they are, Spirit is sure he knows how to use them.  But they do recognize the sentiment.

“Hey, hey, no need to apologise, ‘s long as you’re not causing trouble,” he gives them a sort of half grin.  “Just figured I’d see what you were up ta, if you were alright.  Not often I find anyone hiding on a roof for a good reason.”

Spirit stares.  They don’t exactly know how to react in this situation, so they just.  Don’t.  Their tail curls around one leg and they wish they could just.  Run.  But then he might chase them.  That wouldn’t be good at all.

“Uh.”  He scratches the back of his neck, seemingly uncomfortable with the silence.  “I’m Pigsy.”

How...appropriate?  Spirit fights a giggle, because of course his name is Pigsy, what else could it be?  The smile worms its way onto their face anyway, and their ears twitch as they look anywhere but at Pigsy.

Pigsy smiles back and chuckles a little.

“Yeah, I know it’s kind of on the nose.  Not my first choice of a name, but apparently it’s everyone else’s,” he snorts.

This time, Spirit does giggle, their nose crinkling with the motion as their smile reaches their eyes.  They relax a little.  If Pigsy is at ease enough to joke, it’ll probably be okay.  They’ll probably be okay.

“You, uh, mind telling me your name?” Pigsy asks them, and they freeze again, suddenly shy.

They fidget, then sigh.  It would be rude to not tell him, even though they wanted to keep a low profile, but Pigsy is asking nicely, and he doesn’t seem mean.  What’s the harm?

“Spirit,” they reply.

With a wave, they leap across the space of the street between the two buildings, sliding down the back side of the building.  It’s easy enough to slip into human form and disappear into the crowds towards the outskirts of the city.

They sleep leaning against a tree.  It isn’t terribly comfortable, but Spirit is used to that.

The next month is spent really getting to know the town.  It’s a huge place, and Spirit wants to be aware of every nook and cranny, just in case.  They’re a bit on edge, too, because Monkey King was here, which means he’s unafraid to come back.  If they’re around when he does, that wouldn’t be good.

But if they know all the secret passageways, just maybe, they’ll be able to outrun him.  From what they hear, the Monkey King cares about mortals, so he’d probably try and mitigate collateral.  If they disappear into a crowd, or get underground, they’d likely escape.

They have plans.  They make them whenever they stop on a skyscraper and let the wind blow through their fur, when they look down at the steep drop and think about catching a hand over a thousand years ago, when they think about every step to the present.  They have a plan for every street corner and alleyway, should they be caught.  They have to.  It’s the only way to survive.

Their plans come to a halt when they feel a soul split.  Well, not split, because that’s not possible, but at the very, least spread out.  All kept together by a thin, golden tether that ties them to their source.  

It starts as just one tether.  Then two.  Three, seven, fifteen, thirty-eight, a hundred—Spirit goes dizzy trying to count them all, up on the tallest building in the town.  The weather tower’s roof basically has seats built into its design, if you push a window open and sit on the glass tile, so it’s fun to climb on top of it.

Eventually, they have to see what is happening, because the city is dancing with golden lights scattered across it, and it’s making Spirit dizzy.

A group of tethers coalesces in a single building, an anti gravity arcade.  Spirit hasn’t gone in, because they like when their feet stick to the ground, and the amount of noise and bright lights is enough to leave them dizzy for decades.  They hop to the roof of it, peering over the ledge to see just who is inside.

“Monkey King?”

Spirit whirls around, and comes face to face with a mortal, wearing a bright orange jacket, red pants, a white shirt with a target on the chest (which, not that Spirit would say, is a bit odd, and is asking for a chest injury), and a red headband.

Then, an identical copy of that mortal appears.  Then another.

Suddenly, Spirit is surrounded.

“Uh,” they start.  “No?”

Regardless of their valiant effort to make it known that they are not the Monkey King, they’re dogpiled quickly, grabbed by tens of hands and carried into the sensory hell that is the anti-gravity arcade.

Considering they’re not being hurt, and considering they can’t move their arms, Spirit doesn’t struggle much.  They just shut their eyes, coiling their tail around their leg and staying as limp as possible.  Resistance seems a bit futile, and if they’re malleable instead of stiff they’re less likely to be damaged during their, uh, transport.

“I’m really not the Monkey King,” they try again, though their voice gets muffled by the many, many figures holding them.

The group stops.  There’s a buzz of chatter before one voice cuts out above everything.

“Alright, alright, what’s the haps?  What’s got y’all making me step away from the porty?” The voice has a very casual lilt to it, but it’s recognizable as the same voice of all the other mortals.

“We found the Monkey King!” One of the clones pipes up.

“You what?!”

“We got him, boss!”

“You—okay, okay, lemme see!  Drop him!”

Spirit is dropped onto the ground unceremoniously, and the crowd parts so they can look up to  this supposed leader.

He looks like the rest of the group, but his orange jacket is tied around his waist and his shirt doesn’t have the target on it the rest of them do.  He’s got his pants bunched up at the base of his boots, blue headphones hanging off his neck, and when he glances down at them, Spirit sees a flash of a sharp tooth poking up over his bottom lip.

“Sorry,” they say.  “I’m, uh, not the Monkey King.”

The ringleader groans, leaning his head back.

“Of course you’re not,” he says, though the tone doesn’t indicate that he’s angry at them, which is nice.  He turns to the group standing behind Spirit, and glares.  “C’mon, boys!  I told ya if you saw the Monkey King, you report back to me.  No goin’ after him, no makin’ a fuss.  If this was the real deal, he’d’ve had you poofed quick!  The Boss might not know how to make us go away yet, but the King definitely does.”

He gives a quick, cursory glance over the group.

“We lose anyone?” he asks.

The group shakes their heads.

“Good.  Now, next time, listen to me!” he shouts.  

Spirit flinches at the sound.

The group, thoroughly chastised, all mumble apologies.  The leader sighs.

“Alright, alright.  Half of you keep on look out, and the rest of you go and play.  We got the arcade to ourselves, after all,” he waves them off, and they scatter.

Once they’re gone, he turns to Spirit.  Spirit stiffens and very carefully picks themself up.

“Sorry ‘bout them,” The leader says.  “They’re not the brightest bunch, and any monkey demon is gonna get them excited.  I told them to look out for the Monkey King, not kidnap him, but you spread one brain cell thin enough and things are bound ta’ get lost in translation.

Spirit glances around.  They look to be backstage somewhere.  The hum of pounding bass is muffled, but they can still hear the music.  There are no flashing lights, which is nice.

“Haven’t seen or heard of ya’, though.” The leader speaks up again, drawing back Spirit’s attention.  “What’s your name?”

“Spirit,” Spirit replies.  “And, um, it’s okay.  They weren’t very rough handling me, so it was fine.  

“Um,” They can tell the leader isn’t an original, they can see the tether, but they have to ask.  “You’re, uh, like them, right?”

The leader shrugs.

“If by ‘like them’ you mean a clone?  Sure,” he leans in close toward them.  “But, uh, keep that on the DL, you know?  Don’t want it gettin’ spread around.”

Spirit blinks a few times.  So, clones.  That isn’t surprising.  Macaque can make clones from his shadows, and he told them that Monkey King can make clones out of hair.  The successor must have inherited that power.

The thing that does confuse them, is

“DL?” they ask.

The leader raises a brow.  “The down low?”

“Uh…” Spirit fidgets and glances at their feet. 

The lingo makes no sense.  Is it a new thing?  They’re really bad at keeping up with trends and dialogues.  Their ears burn with embarrassment.  They must look really stupid.

“Just don’t go tellin’ nobody, alright?” The leader clarifies.

Spirit nods.

“Okay!  But, uh, why are you hiding?” It doesn’t seem to make sense.  If the successor made the clones, why do they feel the need to run from him?

“Cuz the Boss made us, made us do a bunch of his dirty work, and I don’t think he’s gonna like that we got tired of it.” The leader glares out toward where Spirit assumes the rest of the arcade is.  “Free will ain’t something clones are supposed to have.  I’m a little more, uh, on the wild side.  The rest of the boys are pretty simple, so I keep ‘em close so they don’t get into trouble.  And hey,” He smiles, all sharp teeth. “Can’t have a porty if you don’t got a roaring crowd.”

Well then.  That certainly changes things.  Spirit has never wondered about the sentience of clones, considering they’ve never interacted with them for long.  Macaque’s shadow clones are more extensions of himself than they are sentient creatures, and they never talk.  But, if clones really do become sentient, it’s a rather cruel thing to strip that sentience away, right?  So long as they aren’t hurting anyone, anyway.

“That’s fair,” they shrug.  “But, um, if you want to really stand out, maybe some new clothes will help?”

“That a fit check?” The leader smirks.

“A what?”

“Nevermind,” The leader waves a hand.  “What you got in mind?”

Spirit tilts their head to the side in thought.

“I think, um...your aesthetic,” they start.  “It doesn’t fit with, uh, the others, so I could get you some new clothes.  Accessories.  As a favor?” They shrug, a bit self conscious.

The leader is pretty confident, and Spirit is decidedly not.  It’s awkward to think that they could be of service.

A blade has a use, but if you have claws that are just as sharp, why buy the tool?

The leader considers this, and then shrugs.

“Sounds good, 3 eyes,” he agrees. 

Spirit blinks.  “It’s Spirit,” they clarify.

“Sure.” The leader shrugs them off.  “Exit’s down the hall to your right.”

Spirit nods and dashes off.  Slipping into human form is easy as a new set of clothes, though they always have to be wary of their tail, wrapping it around their waist like a belt so as not to arise suspicion.

Sure, demons live in this town, but the ratio seems 10:1 and Spirit prefers to blend in.  Besides, if they get mistaken for Monkey King again, they might just scream, if only to startle the crowd so they can get away.

They flit between stores, looking for something fitting for a character like that clone had been.  Spirit isn’t good at fashion, Macaque picked out their outfit after all, but they do have several eyes for flashy things (two, the third isn’t as entranced by such things).  They grab a pair of visor glasses, pink to accent the blue.  They have these weird lines through them, probably to see through.  Spirit thinks they’d be mighty useful to counteract all the bright lights.  

Then they look for something orange to replace the jacket, since it seems to be a fixture on all the other clones.  They find a kind of garish orange tiger print coat.  It’s pretty wild, and, well, the leader said he was pretty wild.  They toss it over their shoulder and head back toward the arcade.

They come in the same back way, because anything to spare themselves the sensory overload of the arcade is worth it, though they feel eyes from all around watching them as they approach the backstage.

Two large bouncers step in front of Spirit, as they approach the backstage, and Spirit nearly trips and falls in their haste to back away.  They’ve never been a fan of looming figures, and even though they’d probably be the same height as the bouncers if they stood up straight, they’re far too used to hunching down to do anything else.

“U-um,” they manage a whisper, clearing their throat before they continue, trying to speak up above the din of the music blaring in the other room.  “I-uh-I-the boss, uh, wanted me to get him some clothes, so…”

They hold up the items they found as proof, giving the two bouncers a shaky smile.

The two share a look, before one walks toward the stage, leaning down for a moment to talk to someone before straightening back up.

“3 eyes!” 

Spirit fights the urge to wince at the nickname, because they don’t like that they only have three eyes, they don’t like the reminder.  Instead, they sigh and smile awkwardly, waving as the leader saunters over.

“Hello,” they show off their pickings.  “I thought these would fit.  Since, uh, neon pink and blue go well together, and, um, I thought this jacket could, uh—”

“It’s way better than the old one!” The leader snatches both items out of Spirit’s hand.

The shades go on his face quick, and he tosses his old jacket so fast it’s a blur as it hits the wall.  He slides the new one onto his shoulders and leans back, hands in his pockets.

“Do I look good?” he asks, then continues without waiting for an answer.  “Nevermind, course I do!  Look at me!”

“I am,” Spirit agrees with a half shrug.

“Nice work, 3 eyes!  The fit fits!” He chuckles, and did his teeth get even sharper in the half an hour or so Spirit has been gone?  They can’t tell.

He plays with the sleeves of the new coat, and glances down at his feet.

“Anyway, uh.” For a moment, he’s almost shy.  “Picked out a name for myself.  Figured keepin’ the old one made no sense and all.”

“Oh?” Spirit keeps their tone carefully neutral, tilting their head to the side.

“Yeah.  Porty.” Porty gives them a wry grin.  “If I say it weird, might as well be my brand, right?”

“Sure?” Brand?  Spirit thought a brand was when you put hot iron on something.  Macaque wanted them to do that to a cow he found, but they couldn’t.  It was too mean.

“Anyway,” Porty’s voice cuts through their confusion.  “I gotta get back to my DJ stand.  Wanna stay for the porty?”

Spirit lets out a nervous laugh.

“Oh, uh, no thank you,” they say, and when Porty frowns, they scramble to explain.  “Not that I don’t, uh, like parties-I—” Well, they’re no good at lying.  “I just have uh, really sensitive eyes and ears.  It would be too loud and bright for me,” Spirit lands on something truthful as they finish, giving Porty a hopeful smile.

Porty’s expression stays carefully neutral, before he bursts into a sharp toothed grin that stretches wide across his face.

“That’s fair, but don’t be a stranger, kay?  Us wild ones gotta stick together!” He nudges their arm.

Spirit thinks Porty is awfully nice and cool, but he talks in ways that make their head spin.

“Got it,” they reply in lieu of asking for clarification, and they disappear out the back door as the music swells again.

They write Porty’s favor into their book just as they start to see the tethers vanish.  One by one, like dying stars flickering out, they disappear.  Spirit watches, wide eyed, as each of over a hundred vanishes.

There's a pit in their stomach, as they think of the giggly, desperate for approval, mostly kind clones suddenly ceasing to exist.  Thinks of the many voices going silent.

Macaque would tell them that clones are a means to an end, a weapon to be discarded after use.  But the successor didn’t discard them after use, he used them and left them, abandoned them.  And now has the audacity to get rid of them when they’re becoming too sentient for his liking?

Spirit doesn’t know the circumstances.  It’s rude to judge a person over things Spirit doesn’t know the full story of.  But they didn’t hate the clones, and Porty, for all his faults, seemed to just want to make a good time for people.  Not the type of good time Spirit would enjoy, but they know others might.

Curled up on the roof of a skyscraper, they watch the lights disappear.  The arcade, a veritable lighthouse of stars, loses its many tethers in an instant.  The mass of light vanishes as if blown away by a gust of wind, until there’s only one left.

The final one, Spirit knows.  

It disappears like the rest.

They break into the arcade that night, and find the coat and glasses on the floor, abandoned.  The arcade is dark and there is broken glass all over the floor, but Spirit steps around it, eyes only for the coat and glasses.  The things they got for him.  To prove that he was more.

Now all that’s left.

They pick the two items up gently and bury them out in the woods.  Maybe Porty wasn’t a real person, maybe he was a means to an end that got out of hand, but Spirit can’t fault anyone who lets them do them a favor.  And besides, sometimes all that’s left of people are memories, and Spirit wants to remember.

They remember Mom, and they know they’re the only one who does.  They can carry that weight for the clones, too, if no one else will.

They get a call from the Long family a month or so after meeting the clone, and isn’t it funny how one of the most affluent, mystically inclined families lives just on the outskirts of the town that Demon Bull King was sealed in?  Spirit wonders if they settled here for that reason, perhaps guarding the staff that the Monkey King left behind, since Monkey King had left it there without any thought.

Spirit doesn’t hate anyone (their father doesn’t count, because they made sure he wasn’t anyone ever, just a memory in Spirit’s mind, forgotten by time as his body burned on its pyre) but they severely dislike the lack of responsibility Monkey King takes.  Not only did he seal away Demon Bull King (Spirit is aware that Demon Bull King was destroying villages and causing a stir, but Monkey King took Red away and what parent wouldn’t be angry?), but he didn’t even stick around to watch over his seal!  He just left it, like the staff alone would be the end-all.  

Spirit would be too anxious to ever leave something that could even possibly be broken.  Maybe they’re paranoid, but they would have at least stuck around, or left a guard, or something!

Honestly, it isn’t surprising that Red managed to break it, eventually.  

They arrive at the Long residence to a sight of a broken down door and demolished artifacts scattered across the entrance hallway.  They blink, three eyes darting around to try and drink everything in.

“Ah, Spirit,” Comes a prim voice.  

Spirit jumps, and turns to find a couple, dressed in green and gold, staring at them.  They’re dolled up, makeup and everything.  Spirit bows, polite.

“Hello,” They greet.  “You’re in need of a favor?”

“Yes,” the woman answers.  “Yesterday, there was an attack on our home by the Demon Bull Family.  Many priceless artifacts were destroyed in the process.  We would like you to salvage as much as you can from the wreck, and clean up the rest.”

So grunt work.  That’s fine.  Typically Spirit is called for that sort of thing, if there are secrets involved.  And when you have priceless artifacts, you don’t want just any random person handling them.  Spirit doesn’t think they’re terribly trustworthy, but if someone asks them to be, they can be.  Keeping their mouth shut is easy because people don’t usually come to them for conversation.

Macaque told them once that they were awfully chatty, but that was when they were younger.  They grew up.  They usually only talk to themselves now.

“Okie doke.” They nod, turning back to the wreckage.

This should take them a few days, if they pull a few all nighters.  They’re pretty bad at sleeping anyway, so at least this time it’ll be on purpose.

They pointedly don’t think about how they told the Demon Bull Family of the artifact that was here.  They pointedly don’t think about how the Demon Bull Family likely attacked this home for said artifact.  What people do with the information they give out is none of their business.  It’s not their fault.

Well.  It is.  Spirit isn’t stupid.  Actions have consequences.  A domino falls and starts a chain reaction.  Regardless of intent, the first domino is the issue.

And Spirit pushed the rest of the pieces down, so the aftermath is their fault.

They start with the biggest pieces of the wreckage, moving out broken stone and whatnot, so that salvaging the finer pieces will be easier.  They’d ask where they’re supposed to move the large pieces of stone, but the two mortals didn’t seem to like them, so they just bring it to the side of the house.  Out of sight for the moment.

They start collecting pieces of broken artifacts, sorting them into different piles for reconstruction later.  They cut their fingers a few times and decide to wrap up their hands in gauze to spare the rest of their fingers from mutilation.

While they’re doing that, someone comes up behind them.

“Hi!”

Spirit jumps a full foot in the air and stumbles to regain their footing, nearly slipping on the dusty tile before steadying.  The gauze not yet secured sticks haphazardly to their sleeves, and they fidget with it as they turn around fully to see who it is that interrupted them.

It looks to be a girl around their age—a little younger, they think.  She’s got the same fine makeup as the two adults who Spirit wagers are her parents, though hers is made less refined in application, instead more youthful and in the form of self expression.  Her green varsity jacket fits in line with her parent’s outfit, green and gold, but the rest of her outfit is a bright white only seen in the marble of the home’s interior.

And then there’s the dragon blade, strapped to her back.  She seems comfortable with it there, which leads them to believe she’s the new wielder.  Which certainly gives her presence weight.  

Spirit lowers themselves to appear non threatening and demure, and they wave, awkwardly, before continuing to affix the gauze to their hands.

“Hello,” they reply. 

“I’m Long Xiaojiao.” The girl bows politely in response.  “But you can call me Mei.”

“Mei,” Spirit repeats, getting used to the word on their tongue, getting over the confusion of someone actually coming up to talk to them when they’re on a job.  “I’m, uh, Spirit.”

“Nice to meet you!” She smiles sunnily up at them.

Spirit stands and fidgets, a little, trying to figure out how to respond.  They don’t know how to interact with people much.  Interacting with Red is easy, they’ve known him for centuries, but with new people, it’s hard.  They’re terribly awkward, and they’re a monkey demon with three eyes.  It isn’t as if they can have conversations with mortals without that becoming a factor.

In fact.

“You know, I haven’t seen a monkey demon before.  Do you know the Monkey King?” she asks.

Spirit winces.  “No,” They respond, quietly.  “He-uh-from what I hear, he’s kind of a recluse, and I don’t interact with many monkey demons,” Spirit shrugs, trying for a smile.

Mei doesn’t seem perturbed by their lack of knowledge, shrugging nonchalantly right back, and Spirit relaxes a fraction.  Like with Pigsy, Mei doesn’t seem to have many expectations on Spirit’s behavior, or requirements of knowledge and or ability.  So far, anyway.

Then again, that could be because they know not to expect anything from Spirit.  Spirit is well known in the demon world to be as worthless as they are useful, and Mei is from a powerful family that Spirit has done favors for before.  The two of them probably knew of Spirit already.  That’s why they’re good at knowing that Spirit knows pretty little.

“Yeah, that’s fair.  My friend MK’s met him, since he’s his successor, but from what I hear from MK, Monkey King doesn’t talk to a lot of people.” She drops the information down in front of Spirit as if it isn’t a bombshell.

Spirit blinks a few times, trying to process the information.  Huh.  So, this girl knows the successor.  Interesting.

“MK?” they ask, curious.

Information is important.  If they perform a favor for Mei, that might get them an in with the successor, which means they’ll have something against the Monkey King and then they can be safe.

“Yup!” Mei whips out her phone, dragon phone case and everything, and shoves the screen up at Spirit, bright light pressing up towards their eyes.

Hand reaching toward their face, reaching digging scraping pain—

Spirit’s back hits the wall.  They don’t remember backing up, just like they don’t remember their breaths picking up, nor do they remember starting to shake.  Eyes wide, they glance around, until they lock eyes with Mei, whose phone is still held up in the air near where their face used to be.

“Oh,” Spirit murmurs, ears rising up from their previously downturned position.  “Sorry.”

Mei drops her arm, brow furrowed in concern.

“I, uh,” Spirit scrambles to explain, because they don’t want her to tell her parents that they’re easily startled, that they’re not good enough, because that could ruin their reputation, that could stop the favor from being kept, it could ruin everything.  “I don’t like.  Things thrown at my face.  Without warning.”

“Oh,” Mei says, softly, gently, glancing at Spirit with something softer and kinder than pity.

“Sorry,” Spirit mutters again, standing up straight.  

They shuffle off, getting back to work at getting the many cracked artifacts off of the ground.  They don’t usually have visceral reactions like that around other people.  The last they can remember is when they were with Red.  He’d waved a hand too close and they’d jumped back.  He didn’t apologize, because Red hates admitting fault, but he did hover over them for a moment, as they regained their bearings.

Mei scuffs her boot on the tile, and then idles over.

“Nah, I get it,” she waves off the apology, though Spirit does question how she could possibly understand when they never told her why.  “Hey, do you have a phone?  I could send you the picture!”

Spirit turns to her, glancing down at the earnest smile on Mei’s face.

“I don’t know if my phone takes photos,” they reply, pulling out the brick of technology out of their pocket.

Mei’s face drops in shock at the sight of it, hands jumping up as if to snatch it from Spirit’s grip. They hand it to her instead, because Spirit can tell she wants to hold it, and Mei looks at it like one would the priceless artifacts shattered around the hall.

“This is...ancient,” she says, delicate, like she doesn’t want to insult them.  “It doesn’t even show emojis!”

“What’s an emoji?” Spirit asks.

Mei drops her face into her hands and groans, before perking back up.

“Can I upgrade it?” she nearly begs, eyes sparkling with excitement.  

Befuddled, Spirit doesn’t immediately agree.  Should they?  They already made Mei upset because they freaked out, it would be rude to deny her something that brings her joy, even if it could come at the expense of Spirit’s phone.

Even more confusing is that, rather than think them stupid for having an inferior product, Mei just wants to fix it up for them.

“Um,” they start, haltingly.  “I like that my phone’s pretty indestructible, and I’ve had it for a while.  Aren’t, um, newer phones more fragile?”

“Not when I make them,” comes Mei’s cheeky reply.  “I’ll even use the materials from this one as a base!  It’ll be the same, just better!  And I’ll be able to send you photos!”

She puts on what Spirit can tell are puppy dog eyes, and Spirit caves instantly.  Mei needn’t use those on them; Spirit knows they’re a pushover.

“Okay,” they acquiesce.

Mei cheers.

“Perfect!  I think I have a charm that will look nice on your phone, too, so I can give you that!” She rocks back and forth on her feet, looking up at the ceiling in thought.

Spirit smiles to themself, setting a collection of pieces on one of the pedestals spared of the destruction.  Tonight, they’ll have to get special glue somewhere to make the cracks nearly unnoticeable.  There’s a demon marketplace a few miles outside of town, so there will probably be some there.

They walk over to the other side of the hall, glancing over at Mei, who follows them.  She fiddles with her phone, and a cursory glance of her screen shows that she’s researching the model of Spirit’s phone for reference.  Huh.  Spirit didn’t know phones could do that.

Their eyes travel from Mei’s phone to the legendary blade on her back.

“You can wield the Jade Dragon Blade?” they ask, aiming for nonchalant and landing on incredulous.  They’re not a good actor.

Instead of puffing out her chest and acting proud, something Spirit would find more characteristic of Mei based on the twenty minutes they’ve spent around her, Mei hunches down a little, looking shy.

“Yeah, I just found out.  It’s, uh, pretty cool.” She shuffles her feet, seemingly reluctant to acknowledge her newfound importance.  “I was never really, uh, what was expected of by my family, so it’s kind of a surprise that I can use it.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, Spirit knows.  High expectations for children of powerful families are to be, well, expected, but it doesn’t mean it’s pleasant.  Spirit doesn’t have to see the tired slump of Mei’s shoulders, with the weight of something wearier than just exhaustion, to know that.  They’ve known it since they saw the fervor and desperation Red worked, the way he swallowed hurt at dismissal.  

It’s a bit sad, they think, that they see it in Mei, too.

“I, uh, I know how to use a bunch of weapons,” They offer off handedly as they continue to work.  “I could teach you some things.  If you want?”

Macaque taught them to use a wide variety of weapons, before they settled on their combat sickles, so they know how to use general blades.  They aren’t a sword master, but they’re sure they could teach Mei the basics.

Mei perks up again.

“Really?  That’d be super helpful.  I think my parents kind of expect me to already know how to use a sword, since I can wield this one, and if I told them I don’t know they’d get me some stuffy tutor or something,” she rolls her eyes at the idea.  

“Once I’m done with this,” Spirit gestures the mess of the entrance hall.  “We could meet up somewhere to start?  Call it a favor.”

Spirit tries not to seem too excited, but opening up a new line of favors with someone is always a fun experience.  A new layer of safety, a new token, even.  If they’re lucky,  Either way, to have Mei’s name in their book would be awful nice.

Mei opens her mouth to accept, but the hard slap of heeled slippers against the marble floors makes them both freeze.

“Xiaojiao,” comes the cold voice of Mei’s mother.  “Spirit is here on a job.  Don’t talk to them.”

“But—”

“Either find someplace else to be or stay in your room.  Now,” Mei’s mother is unrelenting, eyes sharp.

Mei gives Spirit a commiserating smile, and then bounds down the hall, disappearing around the corner.

Once she’s gone, Mei’s mother turns on Spirit, a snarl on her face.  Spirit knows the Long family is one of dragons, but maybe they might have forgotten just how protective dragons are of what is theirs.

“Never,” The voice is a hiss, and Spirit hunches down, curling in on themselves.  “Never talk to my daughter.  You keep away from her.”

Spirit trembles, and nods.  They didn’t want any trouble, really!  They just wanted to help.  And Mei owing them a favor means they could interact with her without being as scared as they are, in general.

But, then again, they suppose having a reputation like theirs does work against you.

They work until nightfall, managing to get most of the hard work done.  There’s still the matter of reconstructing artifacts, which means they need special glue.  So they depart late at night to the demon market a few miles out of town.

It’s more a flea market, not exactly as concrete as some of the other shopping centers Spirit has perused.  It’s actually kind of new, popping up because now that the Demon Bull Family is up and running, demons are crawling in droves to get a piece of the new economic boom.

They find a stand a half an hour into their walk that has the type of glue they need.

“Oh, well there’s a familiar face,” The shopkeep says when Spirit steps up to the stall.

Spirit tilts their head to the side, but doesn’t comment.  “I would like that glue, please,” They practiced saying it a few-fifty-times in their head before stepping up, so they would get it right. They point to the jar they want with a small smile on their face, to be pleasant.

“Alright,” The shopkeep, a fox demon by the ears and swishing tail, takes the jar and wraps it gently.

Spirit reaches into their pocket and pulls out their coin purse, but when they do, the shopkeep laughs.

“No, no, your money is no good here,” The shopkeep says.  “Let me return a favor, to you.”

Spirit blinks a few times, but it isn’t a surprise.  People try and return favors all the time, as if they could ask for anything of Spirit and then return the favor on their terms.  Spirit may do anything for a favor, but they don’t let anyone decide when that favor is returned for a reason.

White splattered red, a smile made dull with crimson spilling over lips.  Returning the favor, returning the favor and dying and never coming back and it’s all your fault why didn’t you stop her—

They sigh, stand up straight, and put on the intimidating smile like Macaque taught them to.  Wide eyes but with a glow that is more a promise than an effect, and a grin with just enough teeth to show that it’s sharp.  It feels weird on their face, but it always works.

“No,” They respond, voice ever quiet.  “I’m the one who deals in favors.  I make the terms.  And I want to pay.”

The marketplace has gone silent.  The shopkeep is frozen in place.  Spirit smiles.

“A-Alright,” the shopkeep finally says, rattling off the total.  

Spirit blinks once, letting the glow in their eyes vanish.  Their shoulders fall as they fumble with their coin purse until they pull out the total.  The shopkeep hands them the bag, and Spirit waves cheerily, turning around and heading toward the exit of the market.

The demons in the market give them a wide berth, but Spirit prefers that.  They like their space.

The whole project for the Long family takes a total of three days, two of which are without sleep.  Spirit is used to not sleeping, whether it be from the usual nightmares or a lack of forethought to go to bed, and so they manage.  Being without sleep leaves them jittery and off kilter, but Mei has seemingly taken her mother’s warning to heart, and Spirit is undisturbed as they work.

They like reconstructing the artifacts.  The heads of the Long family tell them that the family can handle the actual reconstruction of the house, which is a relief considering Spirit knows very little about architecture.  Putting artifacts back together is just like putting together a puzzle, and Spirit loves a good puzzle.  Gets their brain working.

Macaque had puzzles, but his were always more...violent.  Spirit prefers these ones, with the artifacts and without danger.

When they’re done, they’re regarded with distaste but not disappointment, which is nice.  Spirit is pretty sure most people they do deals with don’t particularly like them, because no one likes owing people something.  That’s not Spirit’s problem though!  They always allow people to refuse, but people like convenience, and Spirit is malleable, quiet, unobtrusive, and generally willing to be used as any sort of tool.  They’re more an object than a person, on the job, and that’s good!  It means Spirit is good at whatever they need to be.

They almost forget that they’ve given Mei their phone, because they’re leaving the property when she shouts their name.

They jump a full foot in the air, turning around.

“Hey!” Mei comes sprinting across the courtyard, skidding to a stop in front of them.  “You almost forgot your phone!”

She holds it out, and it looks very little like what Spirit expects.  Gone is the black brick of an item, replaced with a wide, reinforced screen.  The case is sturdy, black with purple accents.  Spirit feels the familiar material in the black sections.  

There’s a little purple lotus charm dangling from one corner.

Spirit holds the phone gingerly, almost afraid they might break it.  They tap on the screen, and it glows!  Spirit taps it a few times, but nothing else happens.

“I have no idea how to use this,” they say, looking over at Mei with wide eyes.

Mei laughs, kind and not at all cruel, which is confusing in and of itself.  Spirit half expected her to think them stupid for not knowing.  But Mei directs Spirit to a stone bench by a pond in the gardens, and carefully explains how the touch screen works, and how to get into the different apps, like contacts and messages.

“I put my number in there,” Mei says, pointing out her contact.  “So that way we can text each other!”

“Oh,” Spirit stares, and then smiles, small and shy and pleased.  “That sounds nice.”

How often is it that someone wants to talk to Spirit?   How often is it that Spirit is told how to contact someone for fun?  For something besides work?  They can only recall Red bothering which is somewhat depressing, but it does nothing to stop the swell of elation that makes their hands shake with the desire to move, at the thought of a new friend.

But to flap their hands like that is childish behavior, so they grip their new phone tight instead.

That doesn’t stop their tail from wagging beneath the bench, though.

Once Mei is done teaching them the basics of modern phone technology, she stands, giving them a sheepish grin.

“I should get going.  If mom finds me here with you, she’ll get real cranky, again,” She smiles.  “Text you later?”

Spirit stands, and their shoulders don’t ache so much.  Subconsciously, they feel the wherewithal to stand tall, for the moment, when Mei gives them such a blinding grin.

“Yeah!

They send their first emoji to Red, a little purple heart and the message ‘Red!  I just learned what emojis are!  I hope you like this one!  From, Spirit.’

Red responds with a bunch of flame emojis, and a single red heart back, stuffed between the fires.  It makes Spirit giggle.  Has Red been sending little fires in every text?  It’s certainly on brand, though they feel it might be a little redundant.  Maybe it’s his theme?

They get a text from Mei.

‘Hey!  I got a race a couple of months from now.  Wanna come watch?  Call it a favor ;D!’

Spirit rocks back and forth on their feet excitedly.

‘Mei,

Sounds fun!  See you then :)

From,

Spirit.’

They add a little purple heart emoji to the end of the text, and receive a barrage of green ones in reply.

Spirit smiles.

[michaeldempsey]

Market Views 4/2/20 - Garbage In, Garbage Out, Jobless Claims, and VC Markets Aren’t Clearing

Garbage In, Garbage Out

There's a saying in the data world called Garbage In, Garbage Out, which basically means that if you input bad data into a model, the outputs (or conclusions) of that model, and thus the decisions made off of that model, are going to similarly be worthless.

It seems that we are seeing that play out in real-time

On the international front, we're now in a shouting match with China about who is telling the truth or not. My gut (and a lot of anecdotes from urns to spikes in deaths and more) tells me that China has been vastly downplaying the extent at which COVID-19 has impacted their population. It seems US intelligence has confirmed this in a new report that was handed to government officials last week.

China has a reputation for not being the most transparent country in the world, however what's more important is that based on the early outbreak there, the garbage data we received from them has drastically impacted the rest of the world's ability to model out various scenarios. If you look at early research papers, many were leaning on Chinese data in order to model out scenarios of spread and economic impact. All of this research now feels like it must be thrown out. However, as Nicole Williams points out, maybe we should have just not trusted this in the first place.

There are two other interesting parts, to me, about all of this.

First - I hate that this gives another narrative for the Trump administration to push off blame for their poor reaction time to COVID-19 stateside. Even with the existing Chinese data, they should have acted faster. And based on decades of intelligence, they also probably should have assumed/did assume that the data was bad.

Second - On a lighter note, yesterday Trump said that he hadn't received an intelligence report. I imagine this isn't true, but I like to think of a world where intelligence people all give that look of "yeah we're not going to bother Trump with this, for the good of our country." Kind of like when one parent tells their kids not to tell the other parent about something bad that happened at home or at school. It's even funnier if you imagine them deciding it's best for the press to know and have Trump learn about it at the same time.

Garbage Jobless Claims Data

There are scenarios where the bad data can allow you to still get a directional view of something. You could argue this is what is happening with initial jobless claims in the US. Last week we saw a record 3.2M jobless claims which seemingly did very little to the market, last Thursday. This is possibly because the figure fell within projections from many economists, however there is another hypothesis surrounding incomplete data. That is, because it was incredibly difficult to meaningfully parse the signal from the noise, as the narrative was that this data was incomplete due to infrastructure issues of people not being able to get through to file for unemployment, it was difficult for the market to truly understand the magnitude at which this data was garbage.

Today we saw a new record of 6.65M jobless claims, breaking the upper bound of most projections (6.5M was the highest I saw from a credible source, with a few 7M's around the internet). The market digested, futures fell a bit, but the movement hasn't been super steep either way. 

It's likely that Wall St has been largely bracing for "very bad" news, hence the lack of steep fall in markets on a historical unemployment figure. While some investors are publicly saying they are buying the dip on certain names, I don't know anyone (disclosure: i don't know a lot of people) that is horizontally buying the economy and thus without a more existential fear, likely related to health of citizens or policy change that extends the duration of an economic slowdown further (and making the "v-shaped recovery" more difficult) I don't think these types of indicators will materially move markets.

As I mentioned yesterday, Trump takes all of his cues from the stock market, and it's likely he's watching today with close eyes before figuring out what he's going to say at his presser either today, or even more importantly Friday going into the close (if he prepares for these things at all). If things aren't too bad today in the market, I imagine he continues to talk about how the current "relief" package (good god this post feels like years ago) is helping tons and tons of Americans and great businesses. If things get out of control, I imagine what we'll see is further rumblings about the next wave of stimulus and how the government is prepared to take any action necessary to save the economy.

Related to data, I still don't have high confidence levels that even this week's data is clean. Yes, we've seen some better infrastructure in place and guidelines for managing load on phone lines and internet for unemployment claims, but it's highly likely we see another spike next week.

Sweden Reversal

So yesterday I wrote about the great British Reversal and specifically talked about the cognitive dissonance that shifting from downplaying to strict measures causes within citizens, companies, and countries broadly. Today we're seeing this happen again in Sweden. Up until yesterday Sweden was perfectly content watching the rest of Europe burn and their neighbors that are 8 kilometers away take strong measures against COVID-19, while they did...nothing.

The former Prime Minister even had a lovely quote on CNN where he said something to the tune of "Swedish people are already predispositioned to social distancing more than others".

On cue, Sweden now has announced more strict (I guess?) social distancing measures, while still allowing shopping. It will be fascinating to see how the data looks relative to the rest of Scandinavia in the coming month.

Other Notes

VC Markets Aren’t Clearing

I wrote a post about how and why VC markets are being affected by COVID-19 paralysis. Specifically I walked through the trickle down effects that lead to lower pricing in the market. Read the post here. 

What I'm Doing

I shorted Zoom yesterday ($ZM not $ZOOM) at $140/share. We can talk about product differentiation, some whispers of negative news, or the insane valuation run-up that feels not sustainable, and then we can pair that on my continued view that a downward trend in markets will effect almost all stocks. There’s some mix of all of those things, but I also felt comfortable riding this out without having to worry about material volatility on the upside case (i.e. the stock running up against me) unless we see revised guidance ahead of earnings in June.

Art

Dystopian Garbage

[originaldetectivesheep]

A Life of Riley Part 4: The Dumptrucks of the Gods ch 4

Chapter 3

IV

With all the work that we had to do in the lab over the next two weeks, I almost forgot about Mel and the fish – Mel and her bizarre grinckle-reducing station that turned out to be, exactly as Carolína must have half-suspected, dug in to the machine room under the undergrad lab members' condo.  She was down there, under a fume hood with a gas mask and a kitchen knife, probably making the ghost antsy by stealing its food to run through her essentializing processes, and after we'd finished getting all of the rest of the dislocator parts out of the machine room, we were back day and night in the lab, finishing the assembly as Riley converted prior versions of the dislocation machinery into this new so-called Raging Potato.  I slept under the drill press again, missing Simon terribly, and in every waking moment I ate, drank, sat, fidgeted and daydreamed high-energy physics and circuit design.  In a fugue of machinery noise from everyone working around us mixed with abrasive Ash Borer and Netra echoes from the buds on the top of my ears, I worked and reworked the abstract mathematical calculations required to parse through the state space, built DIs and cannibalized old printer cables into control harnesses, and fabricated random chunks of metal to Riley's inexplicable, incomprehensible blueprints.  

We were all in; all of us, Carolína and Sajitha and Riley and me switching on and off through every single part of the Potato's subsystems from control software to turning bolts in the outer housing, and because the work was so great, and Riley was so adamant about its completion, we ended up impressing the others: Leo assembling parts together, running harnesses and checking cables, and Remy building the larger parts of the frame together and checking the composition of our few coolant or hydraulic systems, making sure there wouldn't be a corrosion or fault risk once the horrific energies we planned to operate at started thundering through this imposing pile of metal and wire wrapped around the better part of a thermonuclear bomb.  There was well more than enough work for all of us – even as we got the frame assembled and the control systems built and integrated, there was always something more to do: automation routines that needed optimization, heavy-duty power cables from the capacitor cells in to the reactor that needed to be audited and repaired, more capacitor power supplies that just needed to be built and sealed and tested for function.  Check it, test it, rebuild it, repeat, continue.

I was in the middle of one of these cycles adding in a few functions to the control software for the power-transfer circuit board that was going to manage the dump-in of the initiation energy for us – there were too many supplies and not enough cables to do this by hand – when Riley brought me out of my trance, banging on the top of my monitor with a wrench.  "Yuping!  Yuping!  Wake up!  Are you done with the commit on the state-pathing decider?  What are you working on?"

I blinked and pulled my earbuds out.  "Yes, finished; commit is done back and build is building.    Making new control break in power-transfer onboard controller; almost done."

Riley held up a hand.  "Don't bother.  What we have should be good enough – if the lab doesn't melt when we shoot this off, we'll think about improvements for v2.  For right now, I need you to back up your station onto the department cloud share, and anything important that you have local on your phone or a flash drive, any paper drawings that you have notes on that you didn't put over to digital anywhere, you need to come over and throw it in Leo's duffel bag."  I stood up, following Riley's thumb back over to the doorway, where Carolína was struggling with a stack of rolled-up paper schematics and how to fit them into a barely-large-enough duffel that looked to already have a couple laptops inside.

I leaned back over and started the backup, then ejected my thumb drive and took the headphone cord out of my phone.  "Okay," I said, "Only drive and phone, not much on them, but why?"  Riley was already heading back over, and I followed, hoping for some kind of explanation before I got there.  There was a strange tang in the air, a taste even beyond the usual strange tastes we got in the lab from ozone and atmospheric metal pollution – a feeling like something was about to happen, like we were about to cross over a border.

"Your phone goes in the bag because I want to insulate us from observer effect," Riley said, shuffling at the insides of the duffel to make room, "and we're doing the backup and loading in everyone's removable data because I'm like eighty percent sure that after we go up, any state that we transition back to is going to be one where we smashed the Potato right up through the goddamn roof, and the lab is going to be wrecked."  I pulled up, stunned, thumb still on my phone, and Riley noticed, hastening with more of the explanation.

"Mel texted me a couple minutes back, and the grinckle potion is good to go.  So, we're going.  I know there's stuff that we want to fix, that we want to get improved, but we've been more or less ready to start up the Potato for most of the last fifteen hours, and it just happens that Mel is done with the fish stuff right when we're coming up on a flyby window where we'll have a relatively less-shitty path up to the ship.  I'd prefer to go in another three hours, when they'll be on their closest approach, but apparently there is some garbage about the fish chemicals having to be fresh that would make that harder – I don't pretend to know chemistry, much less alchemy, so I'm taking Mel's word on this one – and so we're going now, or at least as close to 'now' as we can get all our shit together.

"The cannon is loaded.  There are a couple of our modded nailguns already inside.  If you want to take a machete or something to mess up any aliens in person, you can go and take it.  Sajitha's downstairs picking up confined-space rebreathers from her co-workers in Facilities in case the oxygen concentrations inside the grinckle spawn areas are shitty.  And Melanie is on the way over with this filterized and essentialized or whatever theoretical pure concentration of grinckleness, which according to the stuff she was putting out in alternative journals about ham and crap, probably ought to modify our state coherence enough that a path to the grinckle originating point will be doable with our energy budget if we can get a close enough approach."

I was trying to think this through, to put all the pieces together, and with that, I could finally speak.  "Riley," I said, "so – plan is – plan is start up Potato and go to space?  To stop grinckles by fighting alien?"

Riley nodded, like there wasn't anything wrong or crazy in that sentence at all.  "Yeah, that's about the shape of it.  Maybe we'll be able to rip them to bits with the cannon and that'll be it, or maybe the satellite is an automated probe that someone else somewhere else is using to strew grinckles for the lulz, but if there are aliens on this alien satellite or alien spaceship, we're going to go kick the shit out of them till they stop.  You think we're not set up for it? I think that between the five of us we should have things pretty well under control: the nailguns aren't that great, but Remy's a taekwondo champ, Carolína's a mean hand with a machete, you're not so bad with one either, and I certainly wouldn't want to be in front of Sajitha when she's got her brass knuckles and a mad on.  Maybe some molotovs would help, but I dunno if we've got the time to buy gas, or if they'd burn in that atmosphere."  As usual, Riley was looking at this as a purely operational problem, with any ideas about the wisdom of going to space in an iron bucket by shifting its quantum reference frame to go fight aliens in the first place completely ignored.

"Five?" I asked, "Not Leo?"  I wasn't looking to try and talk Riley out of this plan, or to poke holes in it – I certainly didn't have a better and smarter idea for us or anyone else to do something about something that wasn't just in orbit but discontinuous with the observed local quantum state – but if I was going to go to orbit strapped in on top of a nuclear bomb, I wanted to have as much information about what we were trying to do as I could get.

"If you haven't noticed, it is kind of super cramped inside the Potato," Riley said, nodding over at the massive pile of steel and cables hogging most of the middle of the lab, "and even five is pushing it, but we can fit, and I need as much skills as we can lift up. Honestly, I really wish that I could leave you here and take Leo, because you're the only one on the crew that's really attached to anyone not stuck in it with us, but even with the autotune, you've got the best hand for state coherence out of all of us.  We're going to friggin space pasted on top of a self-containing tokamak: there is zero room for error here, so I've got to take the best, no ifs ands or buts.

"If we had the spare power and the internal volume, I'd want to take Leo, too," Riley continued, slapping him on the shoulder, "but we don't, and so he's got another important job down here: not just holding our stuff in the short term, but maybe holding onto the lab in the long term.  I'm not gonna say 'if anything happens' – if the engine's got something screwy in it that we couldn't get out with the diagnostics, well, that's a megaton and change of a physics package in there, and all our component atoms are gonna end up looking for new jobs real quick.  But if we don't turn this campus into a glowing hole on startup, and something happens later, then in that case, some future day when the administration wants to fund an AP lab again, then Leo is, not just by accident, exactly who I would want as a designated-survivor to continue the traditions of the Applied Physics lab as we are – not as we were, as we are – I'm not planning on getting any of us killed, or crushed by the roof, or marooned in space, not if I have anything to say about it." Leo still gulped at this; looking at him, I wasn't quite sure whether he was getting emotional at receiving Riley's trust, or about to have a panic attack thinking about what might go wrong when we started the reactor.

"You can, and you really should, take some time and like text or maybe call Simon," Riley said, nodding over at me unconcerned.  "We've got some time before Mel gets here with the grinckle juice, and I know it's not fair to put this on you with like, just today.  Just make sure that you get your phone in the bag, and you get your coveralls on before we have to load up."  I nodded and took a few steps off sideways towards the isolation fridge.

I opened up the phone contacts to call Simon directly, because I didn't want to end up vaporized and the last thing I said to him was something about making sure we ground up that one last avocado for guacamole before it went completely mushy.  The phone clock was showing 13:10, though; by now he was teaching a class, and if I called him, it would take him out of his class, and take him out of himself, and he'd be worried sick about me because I'd called instead of texted and that meant that I was worried, that it was not just possible but likely that I would actually end up dead in space.  I took a deep breath, and another, in and out.  I thought about what we were going to do, the state that the Raging Potato was in, everything we'd built and all the problems that we'd had, all the things that we fixed; where the last little bits were that we might have improved or reinforced if we had another day – the urgent ones that we might have been grinding on right now if we had another hour.  I knew everything – nearly everything – in this jumped-up dislocation chamber backwards and forwards, and in my view, everything was coming down to the very same thing.

There was exactly one point of significant difficulty in this entire system.  There was, in a high-level analysis, only one thing that could go wrong.  It would be hard to move the Potato into orbit by directly pathing across time-sequenced quantum states to displace it in x-y-z, but it was possible – it was what the dislocation circuits were kind of built to do.  If we had to board an alien ship, the atmosphere might be crap, but I knew enough astrobiology just from living with an astronomer that there were practically no atmospheric mixes that were both friendly to any of the possible energy-transformation paths associated with complex life and not fixable with a confined-space rebreather.  No, if something was going to go wrong, really wrong, it was going to go wrong from the start, when we dumped ninety gigajoules of energy into a decades-old nuclear weapon and crossed our fingers that the fusion reaction would start burning in exactly the way it was supposed to in order to contain itself, rather than expanding aggressively and immediately like every other hydrogen bomb of its generation.  That was it – that was the only part we hadn't tested forwards and backwards.  If the Ceiba worked as designed, we could go to space, and I would probably come back in one piece.  If it just blew up, there wouldn't be any time for regrets – and Wetmore Hall was only a couple hundred meters away, well inside the primary fireball at the yield Riley was estimating. If we went, we would go together.

I thumbed down to open a new text conversation and punched in my message:

> riley has me kind of stuck on a lab thing > I probably can't make dinner, out too late > and might be dangerous > well, little bit dangerous > so if something happen, remember, I love you

I held the power button down on the side of the phone, and walked back to toss it in the duffel.  Simon probably wouldn't see it until the end of his class, but it was okay: it would be less time for him to be worried, and if I could do that for him, I would.  Leo zipped up the bag around the phone, and I picked up my coveralls to start getting ready.

There was kind of a stir from out in the hall as I pulled the top part up to put my arms through; I looked back, and immediately saw why. There were people passing in the halls, and Mel Wolfram had come through the middle of them carrying a large thermos bottle wrapped in biohazard caution tape and wearing an army-surplus gas mask.  And not wearing it on top of her head, wearing it on the front of her face – it was Mel's hair and Mel's lab coat, so I could know it was her and not some cybergoth or something doing public performance art, but I had no idea how campus security had managed to not see her and decide she was a biological terrorist.  I zipped up quickly to get back with the others and get whatever Riley wanted with the contents of the bottle done before the police showed up.

This turned out not to be a thing: Riley hustled Melanie inside the lab, then securely closed the door behind her.  "Yuping, Remy, bring it in; Leo, you probably want to back off a little if you don't have a gas mask.  It's better if you stay inside for this part and then get clear with the bag later.  Speaking of gas masks," Riley continued, turning to Mel as she started cutting away at the tape around the thermos with a pocketknife, "what the hell?  I thought this was the deal that you would come up here with the stuff under containment.  And it at least looks like it is – why the mask on?"

"It is under containment," Mel replied, her voice muffled and modulated by the rubber mask and the charcoal filters, "but you can't be too careful.  It's metastable short-term, mostly, but if it let go in the car, I wouldn't've had time to pull the mask down and probably would have crashed into something."  The caution tape and what looked like several layers of plastic shopping bags were cut through, and the thermos bottle was now clear enough that she could start opening the top.  "And it's not just the smell – as it turned out, the best carrier compound for the Lebensfisk is high-proof tequila, so a significant spill would also be packing enough alcohol fumes to knock out a horse." This was sounding immediately bad for us as well as abstractly horrible – especially since Riley was scrounging up five mugs or cups or plastic screw caddies.

"Well, all right," Riley said, obviously not feeling it, "what matters is that you're here, not how much cop aggro you did or didn't pull on the way.  Hold off on pouring for a second; I've got to explain this to the crew, and if it's that bad I don't want to have it sitting out breathing while I convince them to stop wibbling and drink it."  Melanie nodded, keeping a hand over the bottle's screw-off plug, and the rest of us looked around at each other in open dread and horror as Riley began the explanation.

"So before you durfing mud turtle impersonators go and lose all your shit meeping about ham potions and 'scientifically ludicrous' and 'self-intentionally toxic' and other crap, look, this is the rules. Melanie has consumed a lot of her time and her effort and your basement demon's grinckles in order to make this valorized attunement solution, which she is calling Lebensfisk because she invented it, she gets to name it, and in recognition of that achievement, we are going to do shots with it before we fire the capacitors that are loading right now into the Potato and get moving."  I shot a quick look back at the capacitor banks; Riley must have started them up while I was getting changed, but they were loading in, the lights on the indicators showing them ramping on and on towards full charge.

"And I know, that's where you're gonna go next, omagawrf, you're gonna do shots and drive a nuke-powered high-energy relativistic Faraday cage to space.  Right, smart.  No. Look, it is one shot, nobody here is that lightweight, and we're gonna be lifting off by autotune anyway, there's no way that human beings could manage the state transitions manually until we get clear of the atmosphere and there's less particles to care about.  That is the point of the autotune, to handle state displacement in a 3-space-shifting frame of reference."  Riley took a deep breath and stabbed down with two fingers at the workbench.

"The point of this Lebensfisk thing is that when we intake it, in some form like this with the tequila carrier that gets the right concentrations in in the right way to make them biologically available – I'm stressing that it's done this way to not poison us, so can it – we shall attain a degree of elemental grinckleness that will make us stickier on states with high grinckle prevalence than would otherwise be the case.  This will help us conserve power as we approach the alien ship, because once we get above the atmosphere, that thing is going to be, relatively speaking, a goddamn grinckle gravity well, and we are going to effectively fall down the state space through it and then light up their shit."

"A grinckle gravity well," Carolína interrupted, her forehead in knots like she was having trouble wrapping her brain around how horrifically weird this whole idea was.  "A sort of philosophical presence turning into a fundamental force, which we tune to by magic. By magic fish tequila."  She was speaking for, I think, all of us – all of the rest of us who were struck dumb by how idiotic and unscientific this was, even in comparison to all the intensely strange and dubiously possible things that we usually did around the lab.

"Look, do not call it magic," Riley said, obviously put out, "this is a scientific institution and we are going to do goddamn science with this fish potion.  It's not magic: say rather 'experimentally indeterminate theorized applications of unverified principles responding to inadequately-investigated problem domains'.  We reason under incomplete information all the goddamned time; I don't know why this is special or why you're kicking about it."

"Because, Riley, the last time someone drank one of Mel's meat alchemy things, she had to go and get her stomach pumped," Remy answered, his voice cracking and hoarse.  "And that was with a neutral carrier – we're at college, ain't you heard that just tequila by itself is kinda constantly awful?"

"Mel had to get her stomach pumped because she drank a friggin gallon of the ham potion – you try drinking a gallon of something with that much salt in it and see how you feel," Riley shot back.  "This is a shot. This is for like today – it is not a whole life rejuvenation or in this case grinckleization treatment.  You will pound a shot of the Lebensfisk tequila – we will all pound a shot of the Lebensfisk tequila – and it will probably be awful, but we will get on with it and fire up the Potato and get over it.  Like I said: this is going to be hard as crap, and we have no room for error, so every corner I can work, I will do it – and if I'm doing it, then you're going to do it for state consistency."

This wasn't getting anywhere.  Riley was going to make us drink this fish poison, one way or another, and the only thing that would change would be how mad we all were at each other before we stuffed ourselves into a packing crate sitting on top of a hydrogen bomb.  I put up my hands.  "Okay," I said.  "Okay, it's bad. Will probably be very bad – might make worse.  But if works, then it's better – and if doesn't, we'll live.  This lab, we build cannon – we overvolt capacitor even if sometimes melt down – we find nuclear weapon lost in jungle and take home.  Can drink a fish cocktail that was in blender.  This is maybe least dangerous, least dumb, least bad thing we do today – let's do it, let's go."  I dropped my hands onto my knees with a slap, in resignation as much as anything.  The rest of the lab was looking at me; they still weren't any more enthusiastic about drinking Mel's grinckle thing, but at least it looked like the fight might be over.

Sajitha shrugged, and put her hands on her head.  "Fine!  Fine – all right, I'm in.  I'm with Yuping: this is going to be awful but it's got a long way to go before it's the dumbest thing we've done this week.  Let's just shoot 'em and forget this was ever a thing." Remy nodded, and Carolína took a deep breath to pull herself together.  Riley lined up the cups, and Mel braced herself over them, like she had to gather herself, even under her gas mask, before she opened up the bottle and released the horrifying stench inside.

Of course, she would – she'd made it, she knew what she was getting into.  The bottle opened, and the rest of us were almost bowled over by the indescribable brain-gnawing tidal waves of rotten, fermented fish stink somehow married to dead-at-ten-paces rotgut tequila fumes and blended up with the back-alley effluvium of a paint factory that decided illegal dumping fines would be cheaper than hiring someone to drag their garbage away.  The smell was so violently bad that I almost wondered if one of the capacitors had shorted, and was throwing a fatal arc through me, rewiring all my senses backwards before it burned the nerves completely away.  But no, I was not dead – I was still alive, and that meant that there was still my own tumbler of pureed dead grinckle sitting out in front of me.

I grabbed for it, and somehow around the weird blue and purple shadows that were blotching my vision from the fumes and the stench, I could see everyone else having the same idea: the longer these stupid, vile, insane beakers of poison were sitting on our lab bench rather than setting our guts on fire, the longer they were going to stink up the lab.  I threw my head back and slammed the shot – the double shot, there was more liquor in this cup than there had any right to be – at a single swallow, feeling the tequila hit my stomach like an exploding cannon round, and I fought down the urge to puke as the dirty-rutabaga-skin taste of a hundred or a thousand grinckles charged back up into my throat, back up into my nostrils.  This had better work – this had better frigging work – because if it didn't, there was nothing on earth that could redeem this obscenely stupid shot.

I braced myself on the bench, breathing hard; Remy was holding his stomach, wincing, Carolína had her coveralls ripped open at the neck, squeezing her throat and grimacing, and Sajitha, fists clenched into white knuckles, was shuddering with her head vibrating at a frequency we could barely get out of our power drills. Even Riley was looking knocked out, bleary-eyed and coughing, and Leo was backed up to the door, wide-eyed, like he couldn't wait to get the hell out of this place, the hell away before Riley came up with anything worse.

"All right," Riley said, back in command despite a last spluttering cough, "all right – that's it, that's it, let's go.  Get yourselves squared away and get in the Potato – we're gonna hit full power in about a minute and there's no need to wait a second longer than we have to.  Leo, Mel, get clear, close the door, lock up behind you; no observers, no observer effect."

"Good luck," Leo said, his voice showing exactly what he thought of our chances, as he closed the door behind them; inside the lab, Carolína had got her coveralls back together and her rebreather onto her belt, so I could give her a boost up into the Potato and climb up the Ceiba housing into the chamber after her.  Riley finished checking the cable connections from the capacitors in to the reactor initiator a few seconds later, and followed me up, locking down the panel to close us in.

"Sajitha, turn on the interconnect panel."  Sajitha turned on the panel that Riley meant, and because there was barely any way not to see it, how close we were all packed inside the metal dislocation cell, we all saw the capacitor banks all coming up green.  "Right – we're coming right up on full power.  Carolína, open the power-connection interlock, that's the key under your right elbow."  Carolína turned around, sort of, and fiddled with something in the wall of the chamber.  Something clicked up by the ceiling, and Riley opened up a metal latch cover to reveal an impressive button with a heavy idle-contact shield all around it.

"If you want to grab on to someone or something," Riley said, glancing over at the interconnect readout panel, "now would be a great time.  Otherwise, you're probably going to be holding mostly the floor until we get the hang of this.  Full power – firing in three – two – one –"  Riley's finger stabbed the jumpstart button, and ninety billion joules of electrical power dumped in through the ignition manifold, summoning Hardtack Ceiba forth from its sixty years of silence.  Just like that – that was it.

Chapter 5