Month: November 2016

“Ooooo! Who’s being ableist now,” Jesse said.

“It’s not a contest,” Anh said.

“Yes, it totally is,” Colin said, staring after the boho woman with resentment.

“When you’ve always been on top, equality feels like a raw deal,” Jesse said.

“Can we have a proper meeting, when you guys have finished with whatever this bizarre verbal death match is?” Anh said.

“I thought it was a demonstration of reproductive fitness,” Jesse said. He stuck out his tongue and flexed his left arm. His tongue did not reach his arm.

Avtar said, frowning at Jesse, “Winnie’s expecting our first child, so I win.”

Anh asked, with exaggerated disbelief, “You’re married?”

“Yes.”

“She must be hella brave,” Anh said, thinking of Avtar’s association with George.

“Marrying a Guyanese guy? I guess,” Avtar said, cheerfully taking it the wrong way. Anh pointed a finger at him and made a face.

“Wait a minute,” Colin said. “I remember George saying something about Avtar also being part of an interracial couple – he was joking about him and Kima.”

“So you married a white girl,” Anh said.

“Second-gen Taiwanese, eckshully,” Avtar said. “Her parents hate me, of course.”

“Because you have a tan?” Colin said. It was not how Jesse would have followed up, and he felt sorry for Colin.

“Because I’m not Christian,” Avtar said, straight-faced.

His dining companions burst out laughing.

“This too is our Vancouver,” Colin said, recovering.

The boho woman pulled up a chair and said, “I know it’s none of my business, but I’m asking anyway. What are you guys – coworkers?”

“We’re a LARP team,” Avtar said. As the oldest among them, and the most experienced, he produced the lie with easy confidence.

“Really?”

“Yup, ‘Aliens take over Vancouver’,” Anh said.

“It’s called, Run Sixer Run,” Colin said. He had recently re-watched Run Lola Run.

“No it isn’t, it’s called ‘Last Stand on Granville Island!’” Jesse said.

“I wanted to call it, “We are so fucked,” Avtar said, “But Run Sixer Run works.”

“It seems like it! Well, have fun guys,” she said, and went back to her table.

“You bastards,” Avtar said.

“What?” Jesse and Colin said.

“Now I have to go home and build a website.”

“Like Google Calendar for Sixer lovers,” Anh said. “With snacks.”

“Next you’ll be wanting the Minecraft mod,” Avtar said, gloomy.

“I’ve always found more to enjoy in lifting weights and consensual sex,” Jesse said.

They all looked at each other.

“Hide in plain sight,” Colin said.

“With snacks,” Anh said.  “Without snacks, it’s just trolls.”

Jesse found himself smiling. “You know what’s going to be really fun about this, if we pretend it’s a game?”

“What?”

“Laying the city out on a grid and looking at it.  I mean, really looking at it. If we’re trying to prevent our city from burning down, then we need to look at every inch of it and assess it for threats.”

“Most of the work’s been done,” Avtar said.

“Really? You know how to lay hands on it?” Colin asked.

“No,” Avtar said. “In the game, that’s not my area of specialty.”

“Ri-i-ght,” Colin said.

“And we don’t mention details in public,” Jesse said. “You know, I think you’re the biggest security risk in the Sixer cabal.” He was looking at Colin.

“But we’re allowed to say Sixer,” Colin said, frowning.

“We’re normalizing it.  You normalize ideas (in other words, bring uncommon ideas into commonality) by normalizing them (in other words you speak, purchase, make, do, practice, worship, enact ideas.) I know that sounds recursive, but that’s how advertising works,” Anh said.

The men sat with that for a moment.

“You guys are unbelievable,” Anh said.

“How so?” Colin said.

“You were actually thinking about what I just said.”

“You included worship,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, I tripped on that one too,” Avtar said, splaying his hands and nodding in agreement at Jesse.

Colin said, snottily, “I thought it was a little over the top, myself. Do we have to descend into fourth year discussions of bad philosophy?”

“Says the man who went to trade school,” Jesse said under his breath.

“Oh, so now you’re ganging up on the PR person again, in the fight that has gone on since the dawn of marketing.” Anh was signalling the server.

“But we don’t want to normalize the fact that we’ve all done illegal shit to play the game,” Jesse said, dragging the conversation back to the subject. “What are the rules of this game?” His dining companions spoke all at once

“The Sixers are neutral good,” Colin said.

“Kima is the smartest,” Avtar said.

“We can’t talk about the First Nations. Nothing about them without them,” Jesse said.  He added, “If they want to write their own module and keep me out of it, fine,” Jesse said. “Or invite me in with a password, I don’t mind either way.

Anh said, “Three more shots and a Shirley Temple,” to the server.

“So we can talk about fight club but we can’t talk about one of the groups that comes to fight club,” Colin said.

“We make all the secrecy about the First Nations part. All the alien stuff is pretty much lying around, in layers of course,” Avtar said.  “Colin,” he asked in a wheedling voice.

“What?”

“Can you host the game server?”

Colin said, “Er. You know I’m living with my grandparents, and my grandmother is a couple of weeks away from dying at home?”

“Omigod, I’m so sorry,” Anh said.

Colin was solemn. “It’s been a privilege. ‘I want sympathy from no-one for a pain I would not trade for anything.’”

“What’s that? it’s —,” Jesse said. He suddenly thought of Lark.

“It’s something my grandmother said before she stopped being able to talk; I think it was Catalonian poetry, but who knows, and I can’t ask her now.”

“I bet you really needed a break from that.”

“She’s got a caregiver, I’m mostly hanging ‘round with grandad, and he’s mostly okay,” Colin said heavily. “I miss laughing.  There’s not much happening at the house these days.”

“My family’s expecting, Jesse found a body and got beat half to death, Colin’s grandma’s dying… what’s your big dark secret,” Avtar said. His voice was richly encouraging.

“I judge men on how fast they comment on my height,” Anh said, “and assume that I’m Chinese, and assume I can’t speak proper English, and make jokes about massage parlours.”

“I thought we managed to avoid all that,” Avtar said in horror.

“Yeah,” Anh said.  “There’s a bunch of other stuff on my list, and you managed to avoid all that, too.”

“Not quite, Avtar said crazy,” Jesse said. “And so did you!”

“So it is a contest,” Anh said.  “Am I the only person around here who wants this to be a co-operative venture?” She mimed cocking a handgun, and Colin lost his heart.

“When you’re trying to be a better person,” Colin said, stepping up and swinging for the light standards, “It’s always a contest, and you’re almost always losing. And we were talking about a game. So the game is Save Vancouver From Burning Down When Aliens Come Out. The Side Quest is Can We All Be Better People.”

“You first, privileged white guy,” Anh said.

“I am not the token white guy,” Colin said, but this time you could see the tremor in his lip from trying not to laugh, and he was looking right into Anh’s eyes when she started to giggle. Jesse leaned right into Avtar’s ear and whispered, “Warning, crush in progress.”

The humans left to go drinking. And eating. There had to be some eating in there too.

George thanked Kima and Michel for coming. Neither of them responded; thanks weren’t required. He and Michel assisted Kima out to the taxi-van. Michel carried her, and George made all three of them invisible.

Jas, their driver, a turbaned Sikh with a narrow, kindly face, greeted them. George liked Jas because his first reaction to finding out that George was an alien was to consider what his religion demanded of him, which was brotherhood and assistance to the stranger. On occasion Jas was troubled that food never formed part of that friendship and assistance, and from a scientific viewpoint it didn’t make sense to him that George never ate. Learning that every other Sixer did eat, like everything else alive, had been a relief, but it outlined how unusual George was; he was a bridge between two species, not subject to everyday rules.

Jas drove them to the boat, which idled up to the public boat ramp at Vanier Park. With obvious relief, Kima vanished and jumped into the water.  Michel waded after her. George followed, and brought the bucket, which Sparrow secured. Kima had told Sparrow it was very pleasant to hang onto a boat and get dragged around by it. Michel, who like most landmorphs preferred to be in the air, stayed on board to talk to Sparrow, whose practicality and humour he much enjoyed, although he found his reverence for Kima to be convulsingly funny, since it was pretty much how he and George felt about her too.

The humans didn’t know, because the Sixers didn’t tell them, that the three had been linked, in various combinations, for the entire meeting. Michel had sat out on the balcony to give Kima and George a turn. It was easy to link and speak at the same time; all the landmorphs did it habitually. They’d link to one person, as if that person was some kind of sentient security blanket, while conversing in a larger group. They didn’t talk about it, because it seemed as rude as pulling out one’s cell phone at the dinner table, although not as overt.

While Kima was getting her escort home, a haunt at the southern end of Saturna Island, Anh, Jesse and Avtar were scratching off the tequila menu at a Mexican restaurant in Kitsilano. Jesse had texted Colin the coordinates, and as he joined them, he was careful to sit as far from Anh as possible.

“Got me some catching up to do, I see,” Colin said as he strolled up, looking at half an hours’ worth of carnage at his associates’ table. There were shots on the table.  “God, I could so pig out on some carnitas, too.”

“I already ordered some,” Anh said, and snapped her finger. Their plates arrived. 

“Well done,” Colin said, and inspected them as they went by. Jesse had ordered a bean burrito, saying, “What? What? I live alone!” at Avtar’s raised eyebrow. Avtar went for the shredded chicken enchiladas. Anh had ordered double carnitas.

“Go ahead, have one,” Anh said, shoving it off her plate onto a napkin and handing it to Avtar, who handed it to Colin. “You’re lucky I feel like sharing, I literally haven’t eaten all day.”

“You should not go into a meeting with Sixers on an empty stomach,” Jesse said.

“You really shouldn’t,” Avtar said. “Kima, when she winds up, she’s the smartest person on this planet. You gotta have carbs on board when she’s in the room or you are at a big disadvantage.”

“George is much the same,” Jesse said.

“Kima is socially backward, compared to the boys,” Anh said.

All three men, their mouths arrested in various stages of chowing down, looked at her, and slowly started eating again.

“You guys are like a circus act. How long have you known each other?”

“Him and me?” Jesse said, pointing at Colin. “Two, three months.”

“Never met either of them before tonight,” Avtar said. “Are they crazy or is it us?” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Right,” Colin said. “The night of the murder.”

“What? They’ve murdered someone since they came to town?” Anh squeaked, blowing food out of her mouth. Colin snorted.

Jesse said, “No, no, I found a dead body.  Didn’t mean to upset you.”

It was Avtar’s turn to be horrified. “You found a dead body?”

“I’ve had an interesting year,” Jesse said, and decided to quit talking until his food was gone.

“You’re lucky,” Avtar said. “You work with Michel and George.”

“But not Kima,” Anh said.

Avtar said, “Yeah, for me it’s mostly Kima, and tiny bits of Michel and George. Is Michel as crazy and cartoon-like — and as menacing as that — all the time? I think ‘oh, he’d never hurt me’.  Then I wonder. And somehow —”

“Well, yeah,” Colin said. “That’s our lot. We’re sidekicks, and part of that is dealing with how wilful they are compared to humans.”

“We had the sidekick discussion — I thought we were fine,” Jesse said, offended.

“He gave you food poisoning,” Colin said.

“Oh god,” Jesse said.

“Michel gave Jesse food poisoning?” Avtar asked.

“Can we not fucking talk about this right now? The food’s fantastic and you’re harshing my wallies.” Jesse said.

“I don’t have any problem being a sidekick,” Anh said. “Especially when the hero says ‘Go party on my tab!’”

“This isn’t partying. Ever seen George give a light show?” Colin said.

“A light show.”

“Oh yeah,” Colin said.

“You mentioned it about a hunnerd twenty-nine times,” Jesse said.

“He can make Laser Floyd look like a hand-painted stereoscopic image of Niagara Falls,” Colin said.

“Eat your food before it gets cold,” Anh said.

“I’ll order some more carnitas,” Colin said, “in part to repay my debt. But I think I’m gonna hold up on any more alcohol.”

“Why, man?” Jesse said. He saw no hypocrisy in saying, “I’ve never seen a man puke with such grace, it was revelatory.” He offered illustrative arm-waving and nearly poked Avtar with his fork.

“Hey!” Avtar muttered.

“I try to bring polish and precision into everything I do,” Colin said coldly.

“Tell that to your knob collection,” Avtar said, and Jesse, warmed by food and tequila, exploded with laughter.

“You know you guys look like a lifestyle ad,” a boho woman in her thirties said as she passed their table on the way to the restroom.

“I am not the token white guy,” Colin said, but quietly.

“You totally are, you dumbass. I’m the one who’s nobody’s stereotype,” Jesse said.

“You were right to ask,” Anh said to Avtar. The last of her carnita disappeared into her mouth, and she shoved it into her cheek so she could talk. “It’s definitely them that’s crazy.”

Anh was still working through how to deal with alien murderers, as their publicist-in-training, and seemed to be having a rough go, if her facial expressions were anything to go by.

George said, in a strange voice, “Jesse.”

Jesse started. What the hell did George want him to do about this situation?  Fix it? It was best to start with a question.

“Anh?” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said impatiently. She wasn’t making eye contact with anyone.

“No, you aren’t. Your breathing is shallow and you’re jumpy.”

“I’m like that all the time.”

George shook his head slightly.

Jesse said, “Fine, let’s put that to the test. How would you deal with this little —“

“Background problem,” George supplied.

“Works for me,” Jesse said.

“Is there any physical evidence linking you to these alleged murders?” Anh asked.

Michel grinned. “Oh, no,” he said.

“No,” George said.

“Then how do I know it happened at all and you’re not jerking me around?” Anh said.

“Because it was a very important event in making me understand how summary justice, however sweet in prospect, is virtually always a bad idea in practice,” George said.

‘Because I was jealous of George for breaking the taboo even if he obviously felt like shit about it afterward and I wanted to try it.”

“You waited 20 years to try it yourself, you dirty great clownbag,” George interjected. “You had lots of time to understand what a terrible idea it was.”

“You told me about it, remember? You could have hidden it, because of that thing we don’t talk about in front of the humans.  The trouble was I liked it a lot, way more than I thought I would, and way more than you ever would, and then one day I sat down and tried to do the math on how many lives I’d wrecked by killing some asshole.”

“That was when you called me to ask me how to do it,” Kima said.

“Well, yeah, and also —“

“Chut,” said Kima, and George gave his one-bark laugh.

Michel pushed red, glowing eyes out of his face until they bounced off George’s face.  George did not startle or move; he looked like a plasticized concrete statue of himself.

“What’s the thing you don’t talk about in front of the humans?” Anh said.

“Which one?” Michel asked with interest. “Is it regarding physical deformities? Mental health troubles? Being too cozy with his mother?”

“Shut the hell up,” George said.

“Make me,” Michel said. The conversation switched over to Greek.

“This,” Anh said.

Sparrow said, “I don’t envy you. The water taxi is all the alien shenanigans I want.”

“What kind of a deal did you make with George, anyway?” Jesse asked.

Sparrow grinned and his eyebrows briefly flashed upward. “A decent hourly rate plus fuel,” he said.

“You know that’s not what he meant,” Avtar said.

“You’re all settlers to me. If George won’t tell you don’t expect me to fill you in.”

“What,” Anh said. “George cut a deal with the —”

“Jesse, Anh,” George said, briefly breaking away from his huddle with Michel, “Give it a rest. There’s lots you’ll never know, try to get acclimated to that.”

“I need full disclosure,” Anh said.

Sparrow got up, said, “Goodnight everyone.  Michel, Kima, I’ll see you back at the boat.”

He stopped in the doorway, turned and said, “I want you to know, I think you’re all fucking crazy.”

The door closer sighed. The door banged shut.

“Well, that’s kind of ableist,” Anh said blankly.

“Avtar,” Jesse said conversationally. “Let’s go drink beer.”

“I’m not invited?” Anh asked

“Engineers never hang out with PR and marketing people.  It doesn’t work out for us, and we keep getting asked to meetings about our feelings on website layout,” Avtar said.

“And I’m not going to tell you why I won’t drink beer with you unless you buy the first round,” Jesse said, his face unnaturally straight.

“No, the first two, there’d be three of us,” Avtar said.

“And then we leave after the second round? Diabolical old chap, let’s see if  she falls for it,” Jesse said.

“You’ll only go drinking with me if I buy the first two rounds — are you fuckers negging me?”

Jesse and Avtar exchanged a look.

Jesse said, with suspicious dignity. “I thought I was trying to lighten the mood by teasing my new colleague, but I can see I went too far. By all means, let’s go drinking. We’ll tell the server we want separate cheques, so Anh can be spared from breaking her perfect record for never having had to buy a man a drink.”

Smiling now, Anh said,”That’s bullshit. I’ve bought men drinks before.”

“Well, what’s stopping you then?” Avtar asked, with what appeared to be genuine curiosity.

“Check, and mate,” Jesse said.

“This meeting is officially over, get lost,” Michel said.

“What he said,” George said. “Avtar, put the whole thing on my tab.”

“You’re the boss,” Avtar said.

“No, I am,” Kima said.

They all looked at her.

George laughed.

“I can’t believe it,” he said.  “She’s joking.”

“Really?” Michel said.

“What are you going to do about all of those threats?” Anh asked, after a silence. She looked at Michel, who was petting Kima again, and wondered why, when George said she was his mate, he wasn’t the one touching her.

“The biggest problem is a local problem, so I’m coming up with local solutions. I can’t talk about all of them since many of the people I’m negotiating with are far richer than I am, and much more shy.”

“Could you at least give me a rough idea of your strategy?” Sparrow asked. “I’m the one who has to stay here, whatever you have planned. The rest of you are settlers.”

George sighed. “Rich people aren’t very nice,” he said. “But they consistently focus on three things: fondling the levers of power so as to acquire or spend other people’s money, protecting their children from harm, and finding ever more esoteric way to cheat on their taxes. So my solution to the local problem is to come up with a way to grease people who are already rich so they don’t bother me or my …”

“Retainers,” Jesse said.

“Minions,” said Avtar.

“Enablers,” said Sparrow.

“Are we playing a game now? Staff,” Anh said.

“Chums,” said Michel.

“Associates,” said Kima.

“These and more besides, but I’m going to say associates since it doesn’t automatically imply a hierarchical relationship,” George said.

And Kima said it, everyone else in the room thought, eyeing each other.

“I’d feel better,” Avtar said, “If your style didn’t peg out between anarchic trope-smasher and secretive plot-hatching supervillain.”

George acknowledged the hit, throwing up his hands. “Me too. It’s a shame that my birthright of spaceflight is being held up by my sentimental desire to prevent Vancouver from becoming an ongoing mass casualty event. After all, if I went to NASA and told them I’d make all their rockets fall over unless they sent me into space, I’d get my wish, but I’d also be condemning my children to either making peace on my behalf, at the cost of many lives, or deciding that human beings are feedstock for whatever plans  they make for themselves.  I want to leave a legacy of some form of legal way of dealing with disputes between humans and Sixers.” Michel wrapped his arm several times around his neck and and mimed hanging himself.

“Summary justice aside, another sapient species on this planet is going to cause all kinds of problems. If I can’t make one major city safe for Sixers, there will be no way to convince them that it’s safe to live with humans anywhere.”

“I thought humans couldn’t kill you,” Sparrow said, confused.

“If we’re sick, asleep, tricked or trapped, humans can kill us, and have killed us. We don’t kill you because there appears to be a species wide lockout. Which I’ve broken.”

“What?”

“I’ve killed human beings.” George spoke flatly.

All the humans looked at each other.

“So have I,” Michel said.

“I ate a dead human child once,” Kima said.

“Holy shit,” Sparrow said blankly.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Not shit you want on your resumé. Who did you kill?”

“I killed two concentration camp guards, during the Second World War,” George said.  “I was very, very angry, and I’ll never do it again. Michel, you probably shouldn’t talk about it.”

“What? This is the fun part. I was a hit man for the Mafia, in Montréal, back in the sixties and early seventies.”

“Oh my god,” Anh said. “You can’t spin that.”

“I’m a reformed character,” Michel said primly. “I don’t even eat meat anymore.”

“Did you eat the men you killed?” Anh cried in horror. “Please tell me you didn’t eat them.”

“No, it was bury and dump,” Michel said, frowning.

“And Kima!” Anh said, clearly horrified.

“It was before I got my brain,” Kima said.

“What, just picked it up at Save-On?” Avtar said.

“It is an expression,” Kima said. The rise in volume indicated annoyance. “I was swimming in the ocean and found the body of a drowned child. I dragged it to the bottom and ate her over time. I would never kill a sentient child, although I probably would kill an orca calf if I had to.”

“We hate orcas.”

“That’s an inconvenient loathing, here in Vancouver,” Avtar said.  Kima had already shared that tidbit with him.

“You’re very fluent.”

“Fluency implies not having to work to speak. I have to stop using the rest of my brain to leave enough room to speak English and follow a conversation properly. I don’t have problems with mathematical notation or chemistry and I prefer text to speech as it is much less emotional while being processed.”

Anh tried a different tack. “George says you can be any colour of the rainbow.”

“Or I can look like a human.” A glamorous woman, with radiant skin and immense dark eyes, dressed with rich elegance in the style of the late forties, appeared to perch on the barrel.  Her expression was rather waxen, and her motion almost too smooth, but most people would have looked at her twice just for her makeup, not realizing she wasn’t human.

“Wow!” said Jesse.

Colin said, “Brava!”

Anh was speechless.

Kima reverted to her normal appearance. It was very tiring to stand in the air and she only did it to show off.

Stephanie and George quietly returned to the apartment. Stephanie came no further in than the entrance way, and as everyone turned to look at them, said, “I’m not feeling well enough to participate this evening, so I’m going home.”

“Colin,” George said. Colin nodded, rose and said, “Let me give you a lift.” Stephanie looked at George, who said, “He’ll get you to your door.”

“I could take a cab,” Stephanie said.

“I guarantee that my grandad’s Lincoln is more comfy,” Colin said. “And it’s got wifi,” he said, as if this would be the clincher.

Stephanie gave a wan smile of agreement and went to gather her things. They departed.

“Well,” George said. “The smartest and hardest working woman in Vancouver thinks we’re all a bunch of idiots.”

“She can speak for herself,” Sparrow said heavily.

George said, “I concur, but for the meantime, the secret’s safe and she’s scaled back her involvement. If you run into her, which doesn’t seem likely, since she never does anything except go to work, go home, and go to City functions under protest, pretend you don’t know her.”

“I’ve forgotten who she is already,” Michel said, coming in off the balcony. “I don’t mind being around humans who hate and fear me when they deserve to feel crappy, but that was a bit much.”

“Please don’t mock her,” George said. For a moment, he seemed both exhausted and downcast. Brightening, he said, “There’s always the magic agenda.”

“You’ve made it more sound more interesting than when she first suggested it,” Avtar said.

“It’s not the agenda that’s interesting, it’s the assumptions she made doing the ‘SWOT’ analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Let’s not forget that she’s received the Feds’ briefing for municipal leaders on terroristic and other threats to urban civilians.”

Jesse said, “Do you suppose a properly trained realist could ever really fit in with your crew?”

Ignoring him, George said, “There are, according to her, six separate threats to the project of getting me into space. One is me, two is all you including you two,” and here he stabbed a finger at Kima, who ignored him, and then Michel, who shrugged elaborately, “three is local law enforcement, four is the Canadian Forces,” and here Jesse snickered, thinking of the four-tanks-and-a-popgun Canadian military, “five is international sanction including whatever your biggest ally, bully and trading partner, the US, chooses to hand out, and six is well-funded non-state actors.”

“Holy crap,” Avtar said. Jesse felt stupid for laughing.

“Put like that,” George said, “It does seem like a really dumb idea. Which is why I’m trying to figure out how to prevent the worst of what could happen. Jesse, I hope you understand why I wanted you to bring your colourful phiz to the party.  Being my associate is an existential risk and I thought a reminder might be useful.”

“Well, I’m already fucked,” Avtar said cheerfully.

“How so?” Jesse asked.

“Who do you think is spoofing the telecoms for your free secure phone service?” Avtar said.

“With my help,” Kima said.

“Well, yeah,” Avtar said.  “You told me how to do it, I just implemented it. But I suspect I’m the one that will do the time.”

“Oh,” Sparrow said. They all looked at each other. “Thanks for giving me all these names and faces for me to rat out during an ‘enhanced interrogation’,” he said.

“It would have been hard to have a really effective criminal conspiracy without secure coms,” Avtar pointed out.

Jesse said, smiling his toddler smile, “I suppose we can all be thankful you’re helping aliens instead of the Hell’s Angels. George, you said I’d never spend a day in jail over something I did for you.”

Kima’s uncomfortable voice said, “If George is dead he can’t help anybody.”

“But you’ll avenge me, right?” George said. It was obviously a running gag. Michel was swinging his head from side to side in a large, unequivocal ’NO’, while shooting out his lower lip.

“That isn’t traditional for our people,” Kima said. “Either the killing or the vengeance,” she added, to clarify. “At least since we got to Earth,” she added, which clarified nothing.

George answered the implied question. “Jesse, I can’t protect you, and even if I had an army of Sixers at my command — possibly one of the most horrific images I can conjure in a lifetime that has spanned the Armenian Genocide, the Great War, the Second World War, about a hundred and fifty coups and revolutions, the Ukrainian famine, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur — I probably still couldn’t protect you. It’s possible that every last one of you, sooner rather than later, will be jailed, in secret, for life.”

“Which is one of the reasons you have a retired judge in your corner,” Michel said. “Very handy.”

“Colin’s not here to be offended, so I may as well say it: His grandad won’t live forever. Once he’s gone I’ll be paying for my legal help, just like everyone else.”

“He’s working pro bono?” Jesse said, startled.

“Not exactly,” George said, “but he’s been very modest in his demands.”

“Having warned us,” Anh said suddenly, “What would you do if we walked out the door?”

“To you? Nothing. You’re all independent actors.”

“Oh man,” Sparrow said. “I almost wish I could believe something that stupid.”

“I’m not a man, which is why the whole stupid issue comes up,” George said.

He let that sink in, and tried to shift the meeting back to its original purpose.

“I’ve asked for your help because I want to prevent something like Chelyabinsk. I want to become an astronaut and then fly a mission to keep an eye on everything that’s any size moving at any speed upsun of Earth.”

“You want to address a planetary threat,” Avtar said, smiling. He was on board, stating the mission with pride. Jesse started to feel jealous, that Avtar was more in the know, and then he tucked it away. George was talking again.

“I think I’m uniquely qualified for the job, as well as wanting it so badly that I’m prepared to suborn half the public officials in a town the size of Vancouver.”

“So you are bribing people,” Colin said, straight-faced.

“One might consider it filling a war-chest, although variously distributed among interested parties,” George said. “Except it isn’t for a war.”

Colin finally woke to the reason there was a Musqueam man sitting among them. He took a breath, and then George shoved a tiny diaphragm on the end of a tiny invisible tentacle into his ear and said, “Not.another.word.” Looking shocked and sitting back with a twitch of his shoulders, Colin thought better of speaking.

Stephanie returned to the circle and sat down.

“I trust you are feeling better. You mentioned an agenda,” George said politely.

“It seems pointless,” she said. She deliberately looked anywhere but at the barrel. “And nobody is taking notes.”

Kima put her diaphragm over the side and started playing back the audio of the meeting. “I asked a number of people to come tonight,” they heard.

“What?” Stephanie said blankly

“George, a little honesty, please,” Jesse said, shifting uncomfortably in his tiny chair. “Sixers have the ability to take continuous audio and video recordings.”

Kima hung a laptop-screen-sized blob of herself over the side of the barrel and showed a more or less colour image of the room. It panned around until she was looking at herself. They all stared at it, including Stephanie, with varying degrees of fascination and dread. 

Then the lens dove into the barrel and started weaving itself through her tentacles. You could see light coming up, and sparkling on the ceiling. A tiny airplane, pulling a banner stating GEORGE IS A DOOFUS / GEORGES EST ÉCÅ’URANT, appeared to fly through an equally tiny space in the water. Jesse, Colin and Avtar all cracked up. There was a flurry of splashing in the barrel as Kima chased down Michel’s tentacle, which was responsible for the visual, and ejected it.

“Ow,” Michel mouthed through the glass. Jesse wondered where Michel had squeezed his tentacle through and just how narrow a hole he could squeeze through.

“Holy crap,” said Anh. “Do you have video of other Sixers? Of any gatherings of Sixers? Documenting all of this is really important.”

George said, “Yes and no. Without the express permission of any other Sixers shown, we can’t share it.”

“Point being,” Avtar said, “that anything you say to a Sixer can be recorded.”

George said, “Assume that we are recording. Memory doesn’t work in Sixers the way they do in humans.”

“You’ve recorded everything I’ve ever said to you?” Stephanie said.

“Yes. I need to keep the recordings, as I use them to track action items,” George said apologetically.

“You can delete them?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” George said, after a pause. “I can shove them away into a corner, but I’m not convinced I can delete them. I can make them unavailable to other Sixers through the social tentacle, but other than that, I couldn’t say.  May I remind you that one of the reasons I’m coming out is so that we can all learn, Sixers and humans, what our physiology consists of.”

Stephanie said, “George, may I speak to you privately?”

Colin turned to her with an expression of disbelief, and was going to say something when George poked him.

“Sure,” he said. ‘Talk among yourselves,” he said, and they stepped out into the hall.

“We’re toast if she quits,” Sparrow said.

“Who is she?” Colin said uneasily.

“The City Manager,” Sparrow said.

“Of the City of Vancouver?” Colin said, sharply.

“Yup.”

“George’ll find somebody else,” Jesse said. “And he’s kinda got her over a large blue barrel.”

“Like all of us,” Avtar said, but if anything he seemed amused rather than irritated.

“So Kima, who did you meet first?” Anh asked. The crosstalk started.

“I met the man in the costume and then Avtar,” Kima said.  “Then Sparrow and his people.  And then you guys.”

“When did you learn English?”

“I’m still learning English.  It is a ugly language,” she said.

“The agenda,” Stephanie said, with a degree of enunciation which in itself commanded attention.

“After we go round the room,” Anh said, moving her forefinger in a circle and looking at everyone, “and I need to know which of you are aliens. I’ll start with me. I’m Anh. I’m the media intern.”

“You getting paid?” Jesse and Colin said. They looked at each other and Colin said, “Jinx.”

“Don’t feel obliged to answer,” George said peaceably, as Anh drew a breath.

“Then I won’t,” she said, and looked directly at Jesse, who said, “Jesse, driver.”

“Who punched your face in, Jesse?” Anh asked.

“I never saw his ID,” Jesse said, in the blank tone he had once used when his mother was grilling him. “We’re giving our names now,” he said, frowning, and glanced at Colin.

“Colin, research and logistics.”

“Congratulations, Kima’s asleep,” Michel said, pulling his hand out of the bucket. “You guys are fucking boring. I’m going out on the balcony.”

Jesse and Colin waved at his back, more or less at the same time. “The entrainment is complete,” Colin said under his breath.

George said, “That’s Michel, and he’s an alien using a human appearance. Michel, without scaring the neighbours, show your true form.”

Michel obliged, held the pose for a couple of seconds, and then they could hear the balcony door open and slide shut; Michel vanished. George heard Stephanie gasp, and then try to control her breathing.

“I am not asleep,” Kima said. She braced herself on all of her tentacles and  balanced on the edge of the barrel.  Stephanie’s blood pressure tanked and George caught her before she slid out of her chair and hit her head on the floor. Kima, sensing that rearing up like that was not very friendly, slid back into the bucket with a bubbling sound.

Jesse and Colin fetched water and sat Stephanie up. Sparrow sat with his eyes closed, no more than perceptibly shaking his head.

Everyone else was trying to look at anyone else but Kima. Kima had all the manners of a toddler, and it was quite unnerving, except to Jesse, who had to assume that Michel standing outside was either a signal of trust that Kima wouldn’t do anything stupid or a desire to have no responsibility for the outcome if she did. Or both. He was a canny bastard, that Michel.

Those in the circle made anxious noises of concern until Stephanie came to. She excused herself to the bathroom, fending off the assistance of both young men with thanks and a wan smile.  In her absence, Colin, with what appeared to be his normal commonsensical officiousness, picked up her agenda from where it had fallen next to her chair and wondered aloud if they should continue with the check-in and then start in on the agenda.

George looked at Colin for a long moment.

“Everyone in this room is in danger because of me. Stephanie fainted because that’s a reasonable thing for a human being to do the first time they see Kima. She’s out of the room, so let me just say she’s one of the people that’s going to make O-day a success or a failure. Success means nobody dies.  Failure means the city burns down.”

“The only real agenda today is that you get to know each other. I can’t predict what makes certain people like each other and others not, and in that way Sixers are just like people.”

“I like Avtar,” Kima said.

Avtar briefly showed all of his teeth, and then settled into a more social smile.

“Because he’s intelligent and helpful,” Kima added.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Sparrow said.

Kima said something in Halq’eméylem and Sparrow looked thoughtful.

“Is that the Sixer language?” Anh asked.

“No,” George said. “We’re learning downriver Halq’eméylem.”

The balcony door slid open, and Michel said, “I already know both official languages. My brain is “officially” full.”

Full of something, that’s for sure, Jesse thought.

“There’s no Sixer language that matches the auditory range of human beings,” Kima said.  She was trying to be helpful. Everyone was looking at her again.  She interpreted this to mean that they wanted her to keep talking, so she added, “Sixers communicate with light through a modified tentacle. We link up, in pairs, and speak through a pipe analogous to a biological fibre-optic cable.”

“Is there any way to translate that into English?”

“Once we’re living openly among humans, it will be the only means of communication we have which can’t be hacked,” George said placidly. “There is not a snowball’s chance that other Sixers would sit still for us translating the language of light.”

Jesse felt really, really sorry for her, whoever the hell she was.

Colin thought, I should know who this is.

Sparrow and Avtar, who both knew Stephanie virtually but had not previously met her, looked at each other and smiled, and then gave welcoming smiles to Stephanie, who accepted them with some relief.

“I took the liberty of bringing an agenda,” Stephanie said.

Michel said, “If you think it will help.”

The buzzer sounded again. Once again, all the humans jumped, and in reaction both Colin and Jesse started to giggle into their hands. Kima took her diaphragm along for the ride this time and as her tentacle hovered over the button she bellowed into the speakerphone, “Who is it?” in her unnerving voice.

A young woman said, “Who’s this? Is George there?”

“This is Kima. George is here. Who are you?”

George made his eyes pop out, with no subtlety but brevity. “Let her in, Kima,” he said.

Kima buzzed the anonymous woman in.

“Notice how all the women are late,” Jesse whispered.

“Steady on old son they actually have lives,” Colin whispered back, and they started giggling again.

“I’m going to make you swap spots with Avtar if you don’t quit,” George said.

“I’m fine over here with Michel. C’mon guys it’s like you’re passing notes in school,” Avtar said.

“I was homeschooled, but I appreciate the metaphor,” Jesse said raising his hand in acceptance. Being around Colin was bringing out his inner snarks. His qualms about Kima, who was every bit as compelling and remarkable as rumour had encompassed, were making him jittery and talkative, rather than terrified and silent.

“Both of you, be quiet, unless you have something to say germane to our purpose,” George said.

Colin rose five seconds before the knock, and ushered in a woman in her twenties, notably short and Asian. Once again he hung up the newcomer’s coat. “Colin,” he said. “Anh,” she said.

Colin brought up another chair. Jesse thought he was enjoying the sidekick gig too much, and slapped himself mentally for being so narrow-minded.

Colin after all was able to make himself useful in field conditions around aliens, a skill which would likely keep him employed in the future — if it didn’t wind him up in a black site for the rest of his short life, as he had darkly predicted over beer at some hipster dive in East Van.

Jesse remembered frowning as Colin got all gloomy.  “Didn’t he give you the speech?”

“What speech?” Colin said. He was trying to drink everything on the board that wasn’t an IPA.

“Didn’t he tell you you’d never spend a night in jail on his account?”

“I always thought that meant that he’d kill me,” Colin said, apparently serious.

“Lemme get this — fuck man I don’t think I could — I mean why the hell would you work for a guy that you think would kill you if you crossed him? He told me he’d come get me, with lawyers or without.”

“You think he’d do the same for me?” Colin said. “Remember, I work for my granddad, not him.”

“I’m not sure George sees it that way, but whatever. He can’t keep all the gradations of ownership,” here Jesse turned his hands into mock fireworks, “and employment and government straight in practice, for all he knows the codes. I’m certain he thinks of you as part of his familia. The rest of us crew of even-tempered non-conformists would prob’ly not be happy at him ditching you, and even if no-one else cared I would.”

This heartening speech, followed by a few others, allowed Colin to toss his angst overboard (they were drinking at the Rowing Club at that point, neither of them could remember afterward why, although Jesse thought it had something to do with losing a bet about running around Lost Lagoon.) Colin was further cheered by the thought that Michel would pry prison bars apart to win his freedom, and their pub crawl continued until both of them got puking sick within minutes of each other.

“I’m a lightweight — haaaaggh-khuhk-khohk,” said Jesse. His size was no defence, and he’d gotten a late start on alcohol, since bioMom didn’t drink and Rhonda didn’t drink at home, preferring to binge elsewhere. Colin was almost a stealth puker, which seemed at the time somehow admirable.

It was also during this record-breaking evening of debauchery that Colin tried to tell Jesse how hard it was to be a white guy who liked Asian girls while living in Vancouver.

“I’ll have to stop you right there,” Jesse said. “What you’re saying is gross, sexist, not news and not calculated to make me like you.”

“Whaaat? This is a boys’ night out,” Colin said, slurring.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting drunk and looking at women. I’m just asking you not to talk about it or leer while you’re doing it.”

“There is just no fucking escaping from feminists,” Colin said, disgusted.

Jesse emitted a cartoon laugh and said, “I’m living proof you can escape from feminists.  Escaping from feminism, though, unless you want to live in a remote compound free of birth control and Person of Interest re-runs, that’s a little harder to arrange.”

“You’re a right fuckin’ killjoy, you are,” Colin said.

“I have all the joy I need to stay sane, and I wasn’t put on earth to piss on someone else’s. When you act like a jerk toward women, or talk about them among men or women as if they neither need nor deserve agency, you’re hurting women’s joy. You can have all the goddamned sex you want — and then some — without hurting any women’s joy. Once you figure that out — and get serious about what you need out of sex, companionship, parenthood and partnership — your requirement to talk tough about women in front of other men will vanish.”

“I don’t want any of those things but sex and companionship,” Colin said, serious.

“Then find a woman who wants to get laid and have a well-mannered companion for family gatherings, and doesn’t want children or a live-in boyfriend.”

“Where the hell do you find a woman like that?”

“I’m not you. And I’m not the one with a thing for petite Asian woman so why don’t you start by looking where they are.”

“I suppose I could go back to school, except at this point I’m ancient.” Colin was twenty-seven. Of course, he was an old soul, Jesse thought, trying not to guffaw. Half a second later he was sniggering.

“You think I sound like an idiot. I’m not a hyper-buff lumberjack dude with forearms like fucking cord wood,” Colin had said, reacting to the mockery. 

It was with these recent words in mind that Jesse observed how his friend had become mute in the presence of the newcomer.

George said, looking around the room, “Do you wish to meet Kima?”

Sparrow said nothing, presumably because he’d met her. Avtar said, “It’d be an honour,” and Jesse heard Michel make a noise of disbelief through the open balcony door. He and Colin glanced at each other, and nodded at George, who followed them out. In the doorway, Jesse turned, and having noticed that George was tense, said, “Quit worrying, she’ll be fine.”

Michel appeared to be holding hands with a forty-five kilo cuttlefish. Four smallish tentacles, beige speckled with brown, boiled over the side of the barrel. They reached out to grasp the hands of Colin, Jesse, Avtar and George, all of whom, with varying degrees of comfort, surrendered to the gesture.

“Hi,” said Kima.  Her voice was pitched the same as a woman’s, but sounded robotic.

“Hi,” Jesse said. “Can I pick you up?”

Everyone but Michel looked at him as if he was nuts. Michel, of course, was grinning and waiting to see what would happen next.

“What? She wanted to know if I could carry her!” Jesse said, and stood next to the barrel. Kima flowed over the side and, grasping his clothes and his shoulders, draped herself around him. She put her diaphragm against his ear and whispered, “George likes you. I want to like you too.”

He whispered back, “If you tell me how to be your friend, I’ll try.”

“Okay.”

She nearly pushed him over as she dived back into the bucket. Michel, who had been expecting it, turned himself into a shield and prevented the displaced water from flying all over their guests.

“Nicely done,” George said. “It’s a little chilly for the folks, so I’m going back inside for the meeting. Michel, if you’d do the honours.”

“Did I err?” Jesse said, into the atmosphere of general disapproval.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Avtar said.

“Me either,” Colin said.

Sparrow had watched from inside and was slowly shaking his head from side to side as they came back in.

“Did you disrespect her by picking her up?” he asked in a low voice.

“She’ll be the judge of that,” George said, softly.

“She’s an elder, you can’t just throw her around,” Sparrow said.

“That isn’t what happened,” George said.

There were new folding chairs in the apartment, set up in a circle around the coffee table, which was water-damaged enough to have been rescued from an alley.  George gestured for everyone to sit.

“I asked a number of people to come tonight. The most distinguished guest is Sparrow, so I’ll ask him to open the meeting.”

Sparrow looked at George, and there was a long silence.

“Should I open with a blessing?” Sparrow said.

“We’re on your land,” George said. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Michel tip-walked the barrel in, sloshing a little, set it between himself and George and sat.

Sparrow rose, intoned his way through three sentences of what might have been a prayer, and sat down again.

“I’ve asked the Creator and our ancestors to watch over what we do,” he said.

“Thank you,” Jesse and George said, simultaneously.

“Are you guys having a bromance or something?” Colin said resentfully.

“No, that’s me and Michel,” Jesse said. Michel rolled his eyes and then yawned.

“Jesse’s beating raised a fairly serious issue for me,” George said. “Being associated with me is going to put every one of you at risk.”

“I thought Jesse being a silly bugger put his own self at risk,” Michel said.

“Kinda how I was thinking about it,” Jesse said.

The entry buzzer sounded and all the humans jumped. Kima extended a tentacle across the room and held down the button. Sparrow put his hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

George sighed. “Kima, you’re supposed to check who it is first.”

“It’s the frightened one,” Kima said. “I was looking out the window,” she added.

“Seriously,” Jesse said. “The frightened one? You guys scare the shit out of me all the time.”

“Stephanie,” George said. “Her name is Stephanie. She doesn’t want to be here, so give her a welcome.”

“With no food?” Sparrow said.

“Yeah, George, you know about humans and food,” Colin said.

“There’s pop in the fridge, and snacks on the counter,” Michel said. “Don’t all thank me at once.”

“Thanks, Michel,” Jesse said.

“But — there are no plates,” Colin said, having gotten up to inspect the food. He brought out a couple of cans of pop and a bag of nacho chips, which Jesse promptly ripped open.

There was a timid little knock on the door, and Colin, who was closest, answered.

A polished professional woman, white, in her early forties, eyes wide and expression guarded, was standing there.  Colin said, “Hi, I’m Colin,” and shook her hand to prove that he wasn’t an alien.

“Stephanie,” she said.

She gave a tight little smile as Colin took her coat and hung it up, and walked, with obvious reluctance, into the room.

“Please, take a seat. We were just getting started,” George said.

“I’m George.”

“Sparrow.”

“Jesse.”

“Colin.”

“Avtar.”

“Michel.”

Kima raised a tentacle and waved it without speaking. Stephanie sank into her seat with a look of polite horror and the faintest detectable twitch of disgust.

The business phone stayed quiet which was both predictable and a blessing. It was now the full-on cold-and-rainy season and people were staying put, the way they do when they don’t want to break up right before Christmas or move house in a howling gale.

As a concession to Jesse, George deferred the ‘Inaugural all-hands meeting’ until three days after his beating, and scheduled it for half an hour after sunset.

Jesse had made the best of his ‘time off’.

Kelli, one of Jesse’s women friends, had brought herself and her entertaining carpetbag along the next day, only to stand in the doorway in perplexity at the story his bruises were telling.

Rather than demanding sex, which he had been expecting, she had tended his wounds with arnica and his many aches with judicious, gentle massage, and left him tucked in bed, blasted, with the earphones in and his favourite mix tape going. She hadn’t slept over, and he hadn’t heard her leave.

He called Lark the next day. Lark was dumping him, mostly by avoiding any communication, and he felt grisly about it. The concussion made him irritable, nauseated, and weepy.

I almost died. Whyyyyy won’t she talk to me. But why give a shit that one of your girlfriends is dumping you when your other girlfriend is being A PAL, Jesse thought. There was sarcasm in there, but it was drowned in self-pity.

He called Raven, who came through the door determined to be full of bustle and cheer, only to burst into tears when she saw him.

“That bad?” He laughed at her expression and burst his lip open again.

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“‘Cause George helped himself to some of the stuff they were trying to steal.”

“What?”

“Also, my phone isn’t technically legal, or even technically possible, and George has made it clear that I gotta smash it before a cop gets hold of it.”

“You have a concussion and you’re working for a thief who steals from thieves.” She took a deep breath, and stared at him with narrowed eyes.

“Mebbe, but he was smart enough to put a tracker on the truck and figure out I was in trouble, otherwise you might be arranging my funeral right now,” Jesse said. He fell silent and lay back.  Raven got him to eat something nourishing and inoffensive, and gave him a two litre jug of lime flavoured fizzy water, and then left for her shift.

The head pain was a staircase made of broken glass that he scaled to rational thought at his peril. The nose pain had settled into being crappy instead of overwhelming. It amazed him that with all this pain, he could still clearly distinguish the head bash from his broken nose. He felt resentful that he hadn’t gone to hospital, and also very relieved. He knew that for unicorns like him, hospitals were places where well-intentioned and underpaid people got carte blanche to make fatal mistakes.

George had tended to him, roughly and effectively, even if he’d sauntered off with all the g.d. opium, which seemed paternalistic after they’d looted it fair and square. He knew what George was doing and it pissed him off.

He was on T3s, sourced god knew where, brought by George the next day. George told him not to move or watch TV for at least two more days.

Kelli hadn’t made him move that much, since he’d had the sense to tell her he was concussed. She had complained about him not going to the hospital either.

Jesse thought suddenly of his mother, shoving her face in his face, screaming, screaming, but never hitting, because that would be wrong. 

It was men who’d hit him; tied him up and hit him.  He didn’t mind that they’d hit him, strangely, but every time he thought about them tying him up so he couldn’t defend himself, he could feel his blood pressure rise so that his nose pulsed in agony.  Michel called him and said the whole affair was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.  He must have heard about the beating from George; there was no way Jesse was going to call Michel merely to listen to him Monday morning quarterback his way through everything he’d done wrong. He hung up on him, with a cold, “This isn’t helping me recuperate, you wad,” and Michel had had the decency not to call back. His voice sounded stupid to him, and he couldn’t really breathe through his nose yet.

It was an alien who’d cared for him, somewhere he felt safe.

He couldn’t concentrate.  His thoughts stammered and pinned themselves to trivia.

He was pleased the meeting was taking place on his terms, and annoyed that everyone would see his bruises. He considered himself to be a meek individual, although stubborn if crossed, and wondered if his unevenly colourful face would hurt his chances of making friends or being taken seriously.

In the event, he was fine.

Colin he already knew. They nodded to each other without much change of expression. Michel was sitting on the balcony next to a large blue bucket, which appeared to have something splashing in it; he looked back at Colin, who raised his eyebrows and micro-nodded. So that was Kima. He was finally going to meet her.

He was introduced to Avtar, who was a ‘communication specialist’, and a native guy named Sparrow, who was a fisherman with a sideline as a water-taxi moving aliens around the Salish Sea.