Constellation Games (5 page)

For the first time in years, I rode out to Reflex Games's Austin office and padlocked my bike to someone else's bike because the fucking bike racks are full. I knelt on the concrete, unzipped my backpack, and made one more check of the Brain Embryo, which I always make sure to transport in the finest of pillowcases.

Inside I signed in and got a stupid plastic visitors badge. The lobby is still decorated with promotional shit from trade shows, though it's obviously later-gen shit than when I worked there.

"Conference room," said the receptionist. I conference roomed.

Suresh was not in the conference room. The lights were off when I came in. I sat in a chair for about forty-five seconds. Then I got up and rearranged all the chairs. I squared off a section of whiteboard and wrote DO NOT ERASE. Even this got boring.

I knelt down again to check the Brain Embryo. The door opened and someone said "Hello?" I stood up from behind the table and saw a blond frat boy reading off his phone.

"Hi, I'm waiting for Suresh," I said.

"Suresh is in Toronto the rest of the week," said the frat boy. He sat across the table from me. "Ariel, right? Suresh says you used to work at Reflex."

"Yeah, we were devs together on
Recoil
, and the original
Give 'em Hell
."

When I contacted him, Suresh's email signature said "Director of Content." Why had he been called to Toronto? Some kind of content emergency? More importantly, what might this guy's sig say, when he sends out email? "Summer Intern"? Was I being snubbed?

Frat boy had his phone face-up on the desk but he was looking at me. "Yeah?" I said.

"Suresh said you had something to show."

"Oh." I slipped the Brain Embryo out of the pillowcase and set it on the table. I opened the clamshell to show off the control abacus, and flipped up the RF emitters so it would look cool.

"This is an extraterrestrial computer," I said.

He sat up straight. "A Constellation computer."

"Farang, pre-Constellation."

"How powerful is it?"

"It works with six-dimensional polygons," I said. "And Farang have slower reflexes than humans, so they were okay with a low frame rate. But you could see as it a PC from about 2000." I said. Once frat boy heard the year, he slouched back down in his seat.

"The Farang wrote games for this computer," I said. "Thousands of games. Humans can play these games. We have the metadata for the games. We have reviews, we know which ones are good. We just have to get them localized and port them to human systems."

Instant messages were crawling up frat boy's phone but he only gave them a glance. "Reviews," he said, and steepled his fingers. "Do you have sales numbers?"

"The society that built this computer didn't really have capitalism," I said. "My contact says they mostly traded in time-limited apprenticeships within a network of small clans."

Frat boy had the kind of body language that makes it very clear at what point in your sentence he stopped listening to you. "You've played these games?" he said.

"Yeah, nonstop," I said, "for the past forty-eight hours."

"Whaddya think?"

"Have you ever played a Japanese RPG, in Japanese?"

Frat boy's body language got a little more tricky. I couldn't tell if he was saying "Why would I play a Japanese RPG in Japanese?" or "Why would I play a Japanese RPG?"

"There's clearly something there," I said. "This system kept the Farang entertained for a long time. But I don't have the resources to localize these games and bring them to humanity. Reflex does."

Frat boy's phone started popping and crackling. He looked at me quizzically. I unscrewed the Brain Embryo's power capacitor and the noises stopped.

"Uh, it gives 3D effects with radio transmissions. I have an idea for a visualizer, but I'm not very good with hardware. That's another thing..."

"What do you want from Reflex?" said frat boy.

"I just want to be part of the project," I said. "I want to do some games that are important. Culturally."

Frat boy leaned towards me. "Okay," he said. "You worked with Suresh and the guys for four years. As far as I'm concerned, you're still part of the family. And you know that we give each other the straight talk within the family? No bullshit. It's the only way to maintain trust."

"Yeah, I'm quite familiar with this tradition," I said.

"I don't see games here, man," said frat boy. "I see
ideas
for games. Ideas are cheap. You and me, we have ten game ideas every day." He slid his phone along the desk from one hand to the other. "There, make a game about that. We get fan mail we can't read, because people are telling me their game ideas, and we don't want to get sued."

Who sends fan mail to this douchebag? "These games are ninety million years old," I said. "I believe the copyright has expired."

"You know that Reflex only handles original IPs," said frat boy. "You should try a smaller studio. One that does localizations."

"I just spent five years working at smaller studios," I said. "They don't have the money or the vision. Reflex does."

"Then why'd you spend five years working for them?" said frat boy. And for him this meant the end of the conversation.

Outside, defeated, I stared at the mirror glass of the Reflex office building and made
pssh, pssh, pssh
noises, shooting out the windows one by one with my imaginary laser cannon. Don't judge me; I learned it from playing violent video games.

I have something to tell you.

"I have something to ask you," I said to Jenny.

Jenny scraped up the last little pile of pasta on her plate. "Uh, okay," she said.

"How would you like to find employment in the exciting and fast-paced world of video game design?"

"I'd probably hate it," said Jenny.

"Why?"

"Because I've spent the past ten years listening to you hate it."

"No more," I said. "I terminated my contract with the Brazilian company. I'm done with them."

"Oh, good!" Jenny looked up at me. "I kept telling you you could do better."

"Yes," I said. "I'm starting my own game studio."

"I don't think it's a good time for that," said Jenny. "The economy's not so great."

"It's never going to be great," I said. "It sucked when we got out of college, and it sucks now, and I have to take a leap of faith now, before it's too late."

Jenny scooted back her chair. "It's the Constellation, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said, "exactly."

"Ariel, they're scientists," said Jenny. "They're not going to outsource their tie-in games to humans, or whatever you think is gonna happen." She turned on the kitchen faucet and the steam started to rise.

"That's the exact opposite of my idea," I said. "All these games on the Brain Embryo all-in-one pirate cart. We'll port them to human systems. We already know which games were the hits. We just need to localize them. It's like finding money lying on the ground."

"Yeah, alien money," said Jenny. "How do you know the bank will take it?"

"I'm taking a risk and putting up the capital," I said. "That's why they call it capitalism. Okay? To make a game you need one dev and one artist. I want you to be the artist."

"I'm a
fine
artist," said Jenny. "I do mixed-media sculpture."

"You do graphic design for websites," I said. "You can do pixel art."

"Are you
trying
to piss me off?"

"I made pony games!" I said. "But I quit! You can always quit! It's the secret of adulthood. Let's quit being hacks, and do something cool."

"Okay," said Jenny. "I admit this is the first time you have
combined
a silly game idea with a harebrained money-making scheme."

"Why is it a scheme?" I said. "We make a product and sell it. How hard can it be? Every douchebag either one of us has ever worked for has managed to do this!"

"So it's just... pixel art?" said Jenny, "Like on your T-shirts?"

"Yeah, of course," I said.

"Cause I do 3D modeling," said Jenny.

"That skill won't transfer," I said. "Your sculptures don't move. They don't even have to look like specific things. 3D models are why
Pôneis Brilhantes
looks like shit. You get stuck in the uncanny valley and have to spend a million bucks to climb out."

"Speaking of which," said Jenny, "what kind of budget are we looking at?"

"I'll pay you a salary," I said. "That's right, an actual fucking salary. You come to work every day and you get money. We're goin' old school here."

Jenny turned with a soapy cup in her hands. "Health insurance?" she said.

"Let's not go crazy."

This is what I wanted to tell you. My consulting S-corp is now a game studio. Say hello to Crispy Duck Games!

"When do we start?" said Jenny.

"When I find a Brain Embryo game worth porting," I said.

"Well, don't take your time finding one," said Jenny. "I'm tired of watering down the pasta sauce."

Crispy Duck Games: WE'RE NOT HACKS ANYMORE!

Some men in black done knocked on my door, and I don't mean Johnny Cash impersonators. There were two heavies standing on the stoop and if they weren't wearing sunglasses they sure wanted to. They were in their thirties. One was tall and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else; the other was short and buff and wore a dangerously loosened tie.

"Ariel Blum," said the tall one, sizing me up through the door chain. I briefly catalogued my crimes. Nothing unusual for my age/ethnicity/location, nothing that justified dudes in suits.

"Do you have a warrant?" I said. "Because I'm pretty sure you still need one."

"We just want to talk to Ariel," said the short buff one.

"I'm Ariel," I said.

The agents confered between themselves. "Isn't... Ariel a woman's name?" said the tall one. Like I'm hiding the Little Fucking Mermaid in my bathtub.

"It was a man's name until nineteen eighty-nine," I said. "I squeaked in under the wire."

"Mr. Blum," said the short one. "We just need to talk. Really quick. There's no trouble."

"Give me an acronym," I said.

"B.E.A."

"Oh, the—"

"Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs. State Department."

"I'll come out." I undid the chain and slid out onto the porch. Two agents at the door and a black car at the curb. An old natural-gas government sedan. Probably borrowed from the local Homeland Security office, and the agents with it.

"I'm agent Krakowski," said the tall one. "My junior is Fowler."

"
Agent
Fowler," said the short one.

Krakowski ignored this. "You've had contact with an extraterrestrial," he said/asked.

"Yeah, text chat." No point in denying stuff I've posted to my blog. "You want to talk to her?"

"Species?"

"Farang."

"Oh-kay." Krakowski made a gesture to Fowler, who handed me a form out of a manila folder. "We need to register you as a contactee. Once you do, you'll be eligible to sponsor a visa so your contact can visit the United States. "

"Hold it," I said, looking up. "This form is a fake. There's no Paperwork Reduction Act notice."

"G-ddammit," said Fowler. He eyed the dead pot plant on my porch like he wished he could still bust me for it.

"Blum, cut us a break," said Krakowski. "The BEA is ten days old. We're scrambling here. If we had to run timing studies on all our paperwork, Brazil and China would be building theme parks for ETs before we hosted our first state dinner."

"We're talking about competiveness," said Fowler. "Extraterrestrial technology driving American firms out of business. Commie lasers on the moon. You want to see that happen?"

"Not particularly."
I haven't gotten any work from an American company in three years, you pompous fucks.

"So." Fowler pointed at the form in my hand.

"Okay," I said, "but I want to see some badges."

The badges came out. Leftovers. Homeland Security, as I suspected.

"Has your contact delivered to you any piece of technology or other item or value through direct atmospheric insertion?" said Fowler.

"I was hoping I could visit Ring City."

"One thing at a time," said Krakowski. "Have you gotten anything? Any gifts? They may not have called them 'gifts'."

"I got a game system," I said.

"A
game
system
?"

"Yeah, an old Farang—look, we're basically the same age. You never played Nintendo? One of those."

"Why a game system?"

"I asked for one."

"We'd like to see it," said Krakowski.

"You'll also need to fill out a customs form," said Fowler.

"Are you sure? It literally fell out of the sky."

"It's an illegal import."

"
Technically
it's an illegal import," said Krakowski. "It's fine. Nobody's going to jail. We just need to get organized about these things. It's one of those situations where the situation changes faster than the law."

Fowler gave me a stack of forms. The real thing this time, government-issue.

When my brother Raph got his Playstation, all the neighborhood kids came to look at it, even the ones who were about to get one for Christmas, because Christmas hadn't come yet. Showing the Brain Embryo to the BEA agents reminded me of that feeding frenzy, except the neighborhood kids didn't want to disassemble the Playstation and use the parts to build public-private partnerships.

"This looks like a weapon," said Fowler, waving around a cable like it was Dogood Browne's demon-killing whip.

"That's the video splitter," I said. It does not look like a weapon at all.

The examination took a few minutes, and Krakowski shifted the Brain Embryo back and forth for the shaky-shaky sound of the moon dust inside.

"This stuff," he said. "All the Constellation tech. Full of moon dust."

"Yeah," I said.

"Some people are selling the dust online. 'Souvenir of the moon' kind of bullshit. That's a bad idea."

"Why?"

"Health hazard. The dust contains smart matter that we have no idea how it works. We also have obligations under UN treaties not to commercialize the moon."

"Seems like that treaty went down the crapper when the Constellation started digging big chunks out of the thing."

The look on Krakowski's face gave me the party line on UN treaties and their location vis-a-vis the crapper.

"The treaties are all we have," he said. "If we don't stick together, the Constellation will start playing one country against the other."

"We play this right," said Fowler, "there'll be plenty of moon dust for everybody."

"We'll send you an informational packet," said Krakowski as he left, "once we get a discretionary budget for the design of informational packets. If your contact says or does anything to alarm you, or you notice anything suspicious, notify us immediately."

"Like what?" I said. "What are you afraid of?"

"It's precautionary only," said Fowler. "There's been no determination of fear."

After they left I pressed my ear to the door. "Okay, never contradict me in front of a civilian," I head Krakowski say. "Just don't
fucking
..."

(N.B. the form takes 24 minutes to fill out.)