Grow Up

by Craig Anderson

  “Negative. If I have detected the radio signals then it is likely that the Galactic Corp has too. They will send a vessel to investigate. We need to determine if this planet has anything of value, before they do.”

  Gargle risked a glance at the timer on his personal communicator. If they left now he could still deliver the parcel on time. “How long is this going to take?”

  “It depends on this planet’s current level of technology and my ability to interface with it.”

  There was no sense in trying to argue; it would be like trying to convince the toaster to make ice cubes. Gargle said, “Fine, just hurry it up, I have places to be.”

  There was a lengthy pause while several graphs and charts appeared on the viewer. There were various attempts to communicate with the planet, each of which failed. That was promising. If this civilization had not yet progressed far enough along its tech-tree then they would be forced to leave it alone. Fledgling entities were off-limits, even for the G.C. A minimum bar had to be met before a planet could be considered fair game, and right now this one was failing. His best chance of making it out of here was if that continued to be the case.

  As the lines continued to scroll down the viewer, it suddenly stopped, leaving a blinking cursor. Gargle said, “What happened?”

  “They responded using a rudimentary binary code. I have found an interconnected network of computing devices and am downloading relevant information to assess the overall technological progression of this planet. Please wait.”

  That was bad news. Their technology may yet prove to be primitive, but now it required an assessment, and assessments took time. Time was the one thing he didn’t have right now.

  ***

  Josh stared at the clock on the wall. Was it his imagination or had it stopped moving entirely? After what felt like an eternity the long hand ticked forward, begrudgingly surrendering one more minute of detention.

  Mr. Tucker snored loudly at the front of the gym. The sound cut through the silence like a jackhammer. It echoed in the huge space, bouncing off the walls and coming back for another go. It was just irregular enough to be impossible to ignore. The moment you were about to tune it out there was a sudden pitch change or unexpected grunt to make sure you were paying attention. Sometimes it stopped just long enough to give the gift of silence, before starting up again even louder than before. It was the perfect torture.

  Josh glanced around the room. The usual suspects were all present and correct, a rag-tag collection of the school’s most distinguished characters. It didn’t take a detective to determine why each of them was here. Big Pete had bloody knuckles, so he’d been fighting again. Sarah and Steve were holding hands under the desk and looking rather flush, which meant they’d been caught going at it in the library. Again. Even dodgy Brad was in today, no doubt for selling stuff he’d knocked off from the big electronics shop he worked at. His oversized duffle bag was carefully tucked under the desk, away from the prying eyes of teachers.

  Brad leaned over and whispered to Josh. “How’s that new graphics card working out for you?”

  “Yeah it’s awesome, thanks. It has made a big difference to my performance. I’m almost back to where I was before.”

  Brad smirked. He had a very punchable face, but it remained pristine on account of Pete always being in the general vicinity. Brad said, “You still trying to beat Shadow Souls on sadistic?”

  “Yep, I’m pretty close now.”

  “Bollocks!” Brad said, a little too loudly. The snoring stopped for a brief moment, and the room collectively held their breaths, but then the snoring started up again. He tried again, but slightly quieter. “There’s no way you’re going to beat it. It’s impossible.”

  “Actually it’s not. I’m going to do it tonight,” Josh said, whispering as confidently as he could manage.

  Brad laughed and nudged Pete. “Get a load of this. He actually thinks he’s going to finish it. I thought you were one of the smart kids, I never took you for a blagger.”

  “I’m not lying. I’m going to upload my run as soon as I beat it. You can see for yourself tomorrow morning.”

  “Alright, I’ll bite. If you can prove that you did it by the start of school tomorrow I’ll give you fifty quid, but if you can’t then you admit you were talking out of your arse and give me fifty.” He held out his hand.

  Josh hesitated. Fifty pounds was a lot of money. It was two full shifts at the Mega Burger. He didn’t exactly have that kind of money just lying around. “I’m not interested…”

  “I get it, you need bigger stakes. Let’s call it a hundred quid.”

  Now things were getting silly. There was no way he could afford that kind of bet. He was about to tell Brad that, when Brad said, “Ok, I’ve got it. If you lose, you give me a hundred quid, cash. If you win, and beat the game, with proof, then you can have five hundred quids worth of gear from my bag.”

  That was enough to get Josh’s attention. Brad always had the latest computer parts in his bag, on account of the generous 100% employee discount he gave himself. Five hundred quids worth of parts would be enough to finish upgrading his computer back to the point that it was before, and all he had to do was the thing he was planning on doing anyway. Before he could overthink it he said, “Ok, deal. I’m going to stream the whole thing. I’ll send you the link tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, you’d better have my money when you lose, or Pete here will be having a chat with you.” Pete loudly cracked his knuckles to emphasize the point.

  Josh was about to reconsider when he felt his phone buzz. He pulled it out of his pocket, keeping it below the desk in case Tucker woke up. It was a text from his dad.

  Where are you???

  This would require some finesse. Lying to his dad was a recipe for trouble, but he’d learned to walk the tightrope between the truth and something less likely to get him grounded. His dad had enough to worry about these days without Josh adding to it. He thought for a second before tapping out his reply.

  I’m at an after school program run by Mr. Tucker. I’ll be home by 5.

  There was a pause and the dreaded flashing dots that indicated his dad was typing. Josh found himself muttering a mantra under his breath. Please don’t say it, please don’t say it…

  Good. I don’t leave for work until 5:30 and I’m very much looking forward to reading your report card.

  Crap. He’d remembered. Josh had hoped that with everything else going on his dad might have forgotten all about it.

  That would have been too easy.

  Life hadn’t been easy lately. Since his mum had ran out on them there had been a lot of adjustments. The only thing she had left behind was a mountain of debt. The new house was smaller, and smelled slightly musty. His dad had been forced to sell his car and buy a cheaper one, which was so rusty it required proof of a current tetanus shot just to be a passenger. There had also been a lot more crying. Up until recently Josh had never seen his dad cry, but now it was a nightly occurrence. He was too proud to do it in the living room; instead he locked himself in the bathroom. Josh could still hear him though; the house wasn’t big enough to be able to afford luxuries like privacy. It was also testing Josh’s bladder control as it was the only bathroom in the house, and the crying tended to last a while.

  The bell rang, jolting Mr. Tucker awake. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the group before brushing his comb over back into place. As Josh was walking past he said, “Mr. Harper, don’t forget that you still owe me your algebra homework from last week.”

  “Of course sir, it’s almost finished, I’ll pop it by first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Make sure that you do. It is important for me to be able to assess your abilities accurately before you go into your exams. Otherwise we won’t know what to work on.”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  Josh escaped before Tucker threw any more work his way. He wasn’t going to have time to finish it tonight, mostly because he hadn’t started it yet, but bette
r to explain that tomorrow morning when he had already won his bet.

  Now he had a new dilemma. On the one hand, he really wanted to race home to get started on his sadistic run, but on the other he wasn’t quite ready to face his father. He couldn’t avoid him forever, but if he could just miss him tonight then he could make it tomorrow’s problem.

  The way things were going, tomorrow was going to be an absolute disaster.

  Level 2: Down to Earth

  Josh paused outside his house. It was 5:27pm, and his dad’s pile of car-shaped rust was still in the driveway, the engine sputtering as it attempted to de-ice the windscreen. The defroster was about the only thing in the car that still worked. The electric windows had a mind of their own, the radio was stuck on one station, and the cassette player devoured anything placed inside it, including fingers sent to retrieve lost cassettes. Every time it rained Josh was convinced the car was going to dissolve into a pile of wet rust and hideously patterned felt seats.

  He’d tried to time it perfectly, to get home mere moments after his dad had left, thus minimizing the downtime. If he did another lap of the neighbourhood he could postpone the inevitable confrontation. It was a brief stay of execution, but it was better than nothing. At least he would be well rested.

  He was about to make himself scarce when his dad’s booming voice burst out from the front door. “Josh?”

  Damn. There was no escape now. This was going to happen. He turned and did his best to act surprised. “Oh, hey Dad. I just remembered I needed to grab something from the shops.”

  “You’re late.”

  “Yeah sorry, it was such a nice evening out here I took the long way home, to get some exercise. I must have lost track of the time.”

  “You lost track of time?” his dad said incredulously. If there was one thing his dad hated, it was tardiness. The only thing he hated more was cursing. He didn’t start work until six and it was only ten minutes down the road, but he’d leave every day at 5:30, in case there was a freak snow storm, or bad traffic, or his car broke down. Only the latter was something worth planning for, seeing as every journey in the car made it more of a statistical certainty.

  “It was an accident. Won’t happen again.”

  His dad raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with your report card.”

  “Of course not, I can’t wait to go over my progress and achievements with you, but I wouldn’t want to make you late.”

  His dad made his really face. He looked ready to launch right into it, but then he pulled back the blue sleeve of his overalls and frowned at his watch. It was 5:31. “You’re right, I don’t want to rush it, I suspect we have lots to discuss. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

  Josh resisted the urge to fist-pump the air and did his best to feign disappointment.

  “I left you some dinner in the fridge,” his dad said, pulling out of the driveway. “And make sure you study. Your exams will be here before you know it.” He drove off, the car rattling in protest at the sudden acceleration. As he was leaving the street he yelled out, “Love you!” loud enough for half the neighbourhood to hear.

  “Love you too, Dad,” Josh mumbled in response, waving him off. Why did parents insist on being such utter embarrassments at all times? He didn’t remember his dad being this bad before Mum broke his heart and stole all his stuff.

  Josh skipped into the house, glad to escape the biting wind. He passed the side table with the ever-growing pile of envelopes that were slowly turning darker shades of red. Josh and his dad never talked about money, but it was pretty obvious things weren’t going well. The phone didn’t stop ringing, but Josh was under strict instructions never to answer it. The same rule applied to the front door.

  A growl emanated from the living room. It was low and threatening, made all the more amusing when the owner of said growl waddled around the corner. The dog was tiny; it was barely off the ground. Its stumpy legs did the best they could to propel its unusually long body forwards. It looked like a cross between a sausage dog and a box of different-coloured wigs.

  “It’s ok, Pickle, it’s me.”

  The dog picked up the pace of the waddle until she bumped right into Josh’s shin with all the enthusiasm of a tiny rhino. She then proceeded to lick the bottom of his trousers. He bent down and scooped her up, being careful to stay away from the lapping tongue. “Ok, girl, that’s enough. I missed you too. Want to come upstairs?”

  The tail wagging intensified in response. Pickle wasn’t great at stairs, so she always appreciated a lift.

  Josh carried her under his arm. He put her on the ground before shoving the door to his bedroom open. It required some effort — the pile of assorted clothes, books, and discarded pizza boxes were starting to fight back. He was overdue for his annual purge, but not tonight. He had more important things to do. As soon as the door was open wide enough Pickle ran inside, immediately disappearing into the mess.

  He shoved a pile of clothes off his desk chair and dumped his backpack out on to the desk. The report card was the first item and it sat there accusingly. He brushed it aside and kept tipping, until his trusty controller fell out. Pickle immediately started to growl, and he was forced to adopt a stern tone. “No, Pickle, you know the rules, this isn’t a chew toy. This is mine.” He pointed at his own chest in a display of ownership and dominance, or at least that was what the online video had told him.

  Pickle tilted her head and stared back quizzically, unsure as to what was going on, but happy that her master had brought back her favourite toy. She loved to play hide-and-seek with it and got very excited whenever she found it. It was her favourite game that they played together.

  Josh had a favourite game of his own. He immediately booted up Shadow Souls on his computer, the familiar whoosh of the developer’s logo slowly replaced by the epic title screen music. He picked up the controller and held down the button to get it to sync. He felt the vibration in his palms when the connection was made. Then he started up the live stream. He titled it Full play-through of Shadow Souls on Sadistic difficulty with all skulls. If that wasn’t enough to get a few views, nothing would be. After a few seconds his viewer count updated from 0 to 1, then it jumped up to 2. People were tuning in. He had an audience. These people would be telling the world tomorrow that they were there to witness history being made.

  He tried not to think of the people watching as he navigated right past Medium, Hard, and Expert, all the way to Sadistic. He pressed the button and moved on to the next screen, where he activated all of the skulls and hit Play.

  Several warnings popped up, letting him know what a terrible idea this was. He ignored them all.

  This was it—he was going to beat Shadow Souls once and for all, if it was the last thing he did.

  ***

  “What exactly are you doing?” Gargle asked, sliding back and forth on the ceiling. This particular shell didn’t have legs, which had been a strange adjustment at first, but the large section that he slithered about on had a natural suction ability which made any surface a potential floor. This was handy when the ship wasn’t moving, as it wasn’t spinning fast enough to mimic gravity. He could have asked it to, but he wasn’t keen on giving the A.I. anything else to do. He needed her focused on the task at hand.

  “I am deciphering their languages. It is a considerable task. They have not yet settled on an official language for the planet. I am detecting over 7000 unique variations,” she said.

  “7000! That is going to take ages!”

  “Not really. There is considerable overlap, and many of the languages appear to be highly isolated. The primary languages each have their own dictionary, which define the key terms. I am compiling them now. Once that is done I will be able to translate them into a more standardized language, and then we will be able to see what these creatures are discussing. There is also a large amount of video data on their network, with absolutely no security in place to prevent access. It is almost as if they are intentionally shar
ing the data, although I have not yet determined the reason for doing so.”

  Gargle dropped down from the ceiling with a slurp. “Like what? Do you have an example?”

  The central viewer transformed into a huge screen, with a video of a small black creature chasing around a small red dot. It was unclear what it intended to do to the dot when it caught it, as the dot did not appear to have a physical substance. The creature chased the red dot straight off the surface, and fell to the ground with a thump. In the background there was a strange sound, and the view swung around to reveal a long, gangly creature with four limbs and a head, with absolutely no fur. It was hideous, uncoordinated, and noisy. Worst of all, it looked decidedly unthreatening. It was making a sound like it was being asphyxiated, while pointing at the black creature. Then the video promptly ended.

  Gargle scrunched up his features. “What was that?”

  “I am still deciphering. There are many names for the small black creature, but the most common appears to be cat. It is a domesticated predator. I believe it may play a leadership role in this planet, there is a disproportionately high number of video files related to this creature. The other creature was the dominant species, who have titled themselves as human. The cats appear to have tricked the humans into looking after them, in a sort of symbiotic relationship.”

  “So these humans are of low intelligence?”

  “The video files certainly suggest so, but there are other, more complex files that hint at greater complexity. There is a glimmer of potential, certainly enough to warrant further investigation.”

  That was not what Gargle wanted to hear. He’d have to give up on his perfect delivery record, and for what, a thoroughly dull species with no impressive physical characteristics. They wouldn’t even make good shells, there was no armour plating, they didn’t appear to have above-average physical strength or speed, and there was no sign of telekinetic abilities. They looked thoroughly average in all regards. Who would possibly want a shell like that?