Elbies - part 1 Read online

his purse…"

  It was a fun night. The Fhh-bop-uh stayed in character way more than most gamers I've played with, and the robot voice was a little jarring, but I'd rank it in my top five, easy. If the snacks it brought had smelled a little better, I'd say top two.

  The Fhh-bop-uh itself smelled really nice, which surprised all of us. Kind of a cross between cinnamon and ginger, with a hint of raw steak thrown in. That almost made up for the roasted garbage smell of the kibbles it brought to munch on; almost.

  After "Bilbette" left, the rest of us went to the pancake house to come down from the high. "I so wish I'd been live-tweeting that," Rory said, digging into a tall stack. "I'd have about a million followers now."

  "We need to be cool about this," Cindy said. "We talk about how we're gaming with an alien, and Cal's place is gonna be surrounded by news crews and weirdos."

  "Yeah, now it's just weirdos," Rod said, cackling at his own humor.

  "Bilbette probably appreciates a break from dealing with the crowds, too," I said. "And if we want to keep her at the table, we'll need to be respectful. No blabbing about this to the world."

  Everybody agreed. Having an alien gaming with us was cool enough for now; we didn't need to shout it from the rooftops. Rory had a thought or two extra, though. "We all know we're going to talk eventually," he said. "I don't think we should hold it against anybody who breaks the news."

  "Okay," I said. "But we've all got to try. Like, only tell if it's gonna get you laid or something."

  "Well, at least we know that Will won't be telling then," Cindy said, shoving Will.

  Will pouted at her. "It's easy for you; you're married. Some of us have lifetimes of nerdity to fight against."

  "Will definitely gets a free pass if it gets him laid," Rod said. "Hell, I'm willing to take a vote to authorize all of us using it to get Will laid."

  Everybody but Will raised a hand, and then Will did, too. We now had a mission.

  I'm not sure that anybody succeeded, because Will didn't kiss and tell, but he did have a little spring in his step at the next week's game. It was a little embarrassing, really. Especially when Cindy said, "You're welcome."

  Although our pact of secrecy had obviously been breached, there weren't any news teams camped outside my apartment, although a few of my neighbors were taking video with their phones as Bilbette slimed its way up my stairs. "Hello," it said, holding out a small bag. "I brought something special tonight."

  "Hey, you didn't have to," I said, but I took the bag and looked inside like it used to belong to Santa Claus. There were 5 tablets of the kind it had been using last week, and my knees went weak. "Holy God. Are you allowed to give these out?"

  "I requested permission for each of you specifically. You will need to acknowledge the receipt of the tablet and run through the short tutorial, but otherwise you may use them as you wish." It raised a tentacle and waved it at me. "Except you may not sell them or give them to others."

  "No problem on my end," I said, trying to keep from drooling on the tablet I pulled out for myself. I stepped out of the way and let it inside, following with the bag like the god of swag. "Guys, Bilbette got us presents!" I was mobbed and everyone was loudly thanking our Fhh-bop-uh friend for its generosity. We all agreed to the terms, and then started messing around with the machines.

  "This is so cool," Cindy said, stroking the surface of hers fondly. "Bilbette, I will never, ever share it with anyone, I promise." She grinned evilly.

  That made me think of something I'd been meaning to ask. "Hey, 'Bilbette', does it bother you that we don't call you by name? I mean, do you have a name?"

  "Yeah," Rory said, looking up from his tablet for the first time since taking it out of the bag. "And, are you like, a dude or a chick?"

  "You are such an advanced representative of humanity, Rory," Cindy said, punching Rory in the arm.

  'Bilbette' thought for a moment. "I have a sound that identifies me among my own kind, but I doubt that it would be pronounceable by humans. Bilbette is a name that I chose to be identified by you, my fellow gamers, and therefore I would be pleased if you would continue using it to signify my identity."

  "So, you're a chick?" Rory winced at another punch from Cindy.

  "As we do not copulate or reproduce in the human fashion, your gender terms are somewhat meaningless if applied to the Fhh-bop-uh. But, since I have chosen to be identified as a female character, I will accept feminine language modifiers being applied to me." She turned her sensory stalk to Rory. "So, I'm a 'chick'." And with that, she reached out a tentacle and popped a good one on Rory's arm.

  Rubbing his aching limb, Rory whined, "Hey, just cuz she does it doesn't mean you have to."

  "My apologies. I assumed it was something we ladies got to do." Brief pause. "Ha, ha, ha."

  I have to admit, Bilbette was definitely on my good side. But the things that I was reading about her people weren't giving me a lot of warm fuzzies. This was hard to bring up at the gaming table, as much as I looked for opportunities, so I brought it up after gaming when she was helping me clear up.

  "That was an enjoyable game, Cal." She swiped up everything on the table in one tentacle and deftly separated the trash into my trash can while the plates and other stuff I needed to keep plopped back onto the table. She was handy, that was for sure.

  "Thanks." I took a deep breath. I mean, it was now or never. "Say, Bilbette, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I work for the Department of Justice in the U.S. government, and I get access to a lot of documents about you guys." Even though she was an alien species, my lifetime of watching women tense up when I talked to them told me that she was not eagerly anticipating what I was about to say. "Um, I'm all for interstellar progress and human advancement, don't get me wrong. But, some of the things the Fhh-bop-uh are saying kind of sound like humans have got to prune their numbers." I kind of shrank in front of this alien creature and squeaked out, "Is that a fair assessment?"

  I had begun thinking of Bilbette as just another gamer; her appearance had become nothing special to me. Now, though, the sheer otherness of how she looked fell down on top of me. Her sensory stalk, betraying no human emotion, regarded me with clinical coldness, and I felt a lot like our distant ancestors did when they came face to face with a huge predator. Finally, she said, "It is fair."

  Now I felt worse.

  But there was more. "Do you wish to know if you are among the extraneous?"

  "The… the extraneous what?"

  "People."

  "I…" My mind was a total blank. "I don't think I do."

  "Very well." She went back to cleaning up. "This is one of the points of contention with your human leadership. They all have different criteria they wish to consider, usually to make themselves necessary. We do not wish to cause disharmony, therefore we are willing to work within the parameters that humans set, but our best estimates require a ninety-five percent reduction in the human population in order to keep your species viable." Her sensory stalk turned back to me, and I could almost hear an apologetic tone in that robotic voice. "I am sorry. I enjoy humans and one of the reasons you are so fascinating is the mighty press of your great numbers. But you must be viably sustainable in order to join the C.O.I.L. and you cannot sustain the majority of your population for more than one more century of your current civilization."

  I had been guessing all this from the information I had intercepted, but hearing it baldly stated like that made me light-headed. The fact that Bilbette regretted it made it all the more real. She was getting her time among the natives while the natives were still here.

  "What if we decide we can't do that? We're not gonna get rid of everybody on Earth? Do you still deal with us?"

  "Possibly," she said, considering. "But mainly in cultural ways. We will not share our technology with you if it will be destructive in both inward and outward ways."

  "Outward ways?" That threw me for a minute. "You mean, you're afraid
we'll use what you give us against you?"

  "Of course. We have to plan every scenario we can think of into our negotiations, and all of the Fhh-bop-uh have been familiarized with your alien invasion literature. Especially in the event that you are persuaded to part with the majority of your population, we anticipate retaliation from the rest of you. There are contingency plans in place to destroy you all if that should happen."

  My light-headedness wasn't going away. "Yeah, that seems fair."

  "I do not wish this to happen, you understand." Bilbette extended her tentacles out in as human a gesture of pleading as she could make, but it just made her all the more alien to me. "As I said, I enjoy humans. I argued for minimal cultural contact; employing a Prime Directive, if you will. But, the leadership of the C.O.I.L. feel that humans have real potential and wish for you to be joined with us."

  "But we have to pay a price for it."

  "Yes."

  I sat down. It was completely unfair that the world had achieved Nerdvana and my alien saviors were demanding that most of us die in order to ascend to their level. "How long do you think the negotiations are going to take?"

  "I am uncertain. The human leaders are understandably reluctant to accept that condition."

  "I bet."

  "They will come around, of course. We have done this with many other species, and it is very rare that we are refused."

  "Maybe we'll surprise you."

  I had no idea they