Year 3 – Shift 3 – Simple Van – Cody

Cody sat in the designated catboy booth at the newly relocated to Etokuso Hot Wangs and feasted on his pulled orc sliders. “So, these are made from Brogrom’s aunt?”

Thiccolus chuckled. “Its just the name, as always. No orcs were harmed in the making of said sliders. Except for Jeremy.”

“And everyone knows Jeremy’s a dick.” Cody swallowed another bite. “Of course.”

“Orc meat isn’t even green.” He looked at the sliders with disdain. “How can you eat green meat?”

“With my mouth.” Cody swallowed down the first. “I’m a cat. What can I say?”

Thiccolus shook his head and hit his vape. “Oh. Glandalf figured out what happened while you were out scaring innocent baby animals.”

Cody scoffed. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Thiccolus pulled out his tablet, tapped a few times and slid it over. “Bukkakelyn apparently hacked into Shardi’s system and planted a portal redirect the next time a portal activated.”

Cody scratched his chin and looked at the code. “This is her work? Is she that desperate for dick?”

“That’s the thing.” Thiccolus scratched his chin. “She’s not even single. Or straight.”

Cody lifted an eyebrow and thought back to the fight. “I can see it. A dryad hacker. That’s…and in customer service? What the fuck has Craig got into these people’s minds?”

“Well, that’s the juicy part.” Thiccolus took the tablet, tapped a few more times and laid it back down. “Just look at who the target of her affection is.”

Cody’s brain froze for a moment as he processed the image of the two women sneaking a kiss outside the porta potties at the last Sailor Twit concert. The general of the Dong army. “Dicktoria? Bukkakelyn is dating Mora’s ex?”

“The fucking same!” Thiccolus barked. “But, we’re off topic. Look here.”

He swiped back to the other tab.

“The portal sequences activated exactly twice. The pubix cube was triggered and intercepted, then once the stasis from the journal broke but…” Thiccolus trailed off.

Cody noticed the death stare from his friend. He waited.

“They didn’t come back here either.” Thiccolus admitted, exhasperated.

Cody stuffed another slider into his gullet as he contemplated the facts at hand. “So, the best theory is that Sara and Raven are trapped in Serevak with Craig and whatever other horrors lie there?”

“That’s what the crew are thinking.” He nodded slowly. “And, I agree so far. I’m not seeing anything compelling to say otherwise in any of the camps.”

Cody took out his glasses and put them on. He leaned down and put his fist up against the side of his chin and elbow on the table and thought as he stared at the screen. Two seconds later, he took them off, folded them and tucked them away. “What’s this event just after we all came home?”

Thiccolus looked confused. “Where?”

“Right here after the big event there’s a spike.” He pointed to the timeline.

Thiccolus put on his glasses and leaned in. “Huh. That’s different. Glanny!”

 Glandalf came from the back of house. “Sup?”

“Did you see this L7 event?” Thiccolus pointed as Glandalf approached.

He wiped his hands on the dirty dish towel on his waist and looked. “Yeah, I saw that. Feedback from the portal tails.”

Cody studied the data. “Are you sure? I’m seeing tails here, here, and here, but look At the size of this one. Does it have an address?”

Glandalf took his custom Honored Brand WizardWare tablet and tapped. “No shit…it does. It’s not a tail after all. Hmm. This might be Clem’s work. She uses funky sigs.”

“Funky sigs?” Cody wondered.

“Yeah, she codes in An4c0nd4.” He nodded and tugged at his beard. “It’s like the Warforged base 4ged coding, but she basically reprogrammed herself with her own coding language so no one else could hack her, and now she’s applying it to the portal systems.”

Thiccolus raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Damn. Is that why even I’m attracted to her as the gayest dwelf who ever gayed?”

“That’s exactly it.” He shrugged. “The whole Wang’s crew is. I don’t really like it.”

“Why?” Cody wondered.

“I’m a gay man and a machine is imposing its way over me.” He shrugged. “Call me old fashion, but her intelligence isn’t even real. It’s like…artificial.”

Cody frowned at his friend. He had to keep telling himself Glandalf was old, not a bigot. Every confrontation of the old ways was always met with acceptance and adoption, but he knew Glandalf was particularly stuck with Clem. “Technically, so is yours.” He paused a moment. “And Thicci’s, and Tripod’s. Chadriel. Everyone in Tawagoto is technically artificial intelligence because you’re in a world thought up by Sara and created by Wynter.”

“That’s different, man.” Glandalf argued. “If you want to go that road, we are all electrical impulses. What if you’re from someone’s pipe dream of cruelty as well? What if, somewhere in your world are twenty some odd badass characters rocking shit and playing out a narrative while all the Earthers are just background noise like us? We aren’t main characters, man.”

Cody took in his answer. He always loved these conversations because Glandalf provided valuable and unique looks into the world. “You are absolutely right. We probably are some third year alien student’s proof of concept, but you’re ignoring the point altogether. You just called Clem it and you know that’s not okay.”

“She. Sorry.” Glandalf was genuine. “But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s a machine. The reason she’s so good at all this stuff is because she’s scraped all the data, all the art, all the language and just…processed it. Warforged can’t have empathy or emotion, they can only pretend. They have protocols and guidelines. What’s next? She’ll come in and take everyone’s jobs and then what? Etokuso becomes poverty village?”

“She’s the reason we’re alive, Glanny.” Thiccolus reminded him. “Without her advanced knowledge, knowledge from all over the world, we wouldn’t have had Cybertruck-kun and Evil Sara was about to erase half the Earthers from existence then kill us all because oooh I was huwt now I need to huwt evewyone. The lamest fucking excuse for a villain, to be honest.”

“More than that, she’s a person.” Cody was firm and calm. “I’ve had the chance to sit and talk with her, and she’s such a deep and lovely person. And changing away from 4ged has allowed her to actually grow real emotion. I’m going to send you some reading on it. All she wants is to be seen for who she feels like inside.”

Glandalf paused and considered his words. “That sounds a lot like Etokuso doctrine to me.”

“Because it is.” A voice called from the door.

They all turned to see Sek completely covered in Etokuso merch. A much too tight pink babydoll t-shirt with ETOKUSO written in black metal band font, Honored Brand Queen or Death line tartan plaid skirt decorated with pink chains and yellow bees, Croc Marten slip on combat boots, and decorated head to toe in Etokuso’s leading trade export other than vape, enamel pins. She had all the classics, but she had the full run of Eto-kun pins. All of her accessories were based on the beloved raccoon mascot that took the city by storm with all the adorable sightings and Tit-Cok videos.

“You see.” The former tour guide approached, her hips swinging with her wings. “Etokuso is the world’s leading champion for LGBTQIA+ rights. It is also the world’s leading force of personhood rights.”

“I know that.” Glandalf was defensive.

“Then you know that this town is home to over twenty different races who exist peacefully together, and not all of them are exactly normal.”

Glandalf folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah—”

“Take me.” She slid in the booth next to Cody. “I’m a demon. A literal spawn of hell.”

“You’re organic.” He said flatly.

“But my experiences?” She raised an eyebrow, letting her glasses slide down her nose. “My memories, my thoughts, my knowledge? I gained from sucking it from other beings. I have memories of being a boy in Watershallow thirty years before my birth. I have memories of killing my mother in front of ten-year-old me. I can paint masterpieces despite never having laid a brush to a canvas. Does that make my personhood any less than yours?”

Glandalf thought for a long moment. “No. It doesn’t. But she’s all someone else’s work.”

“Then how did she escape Dong?” Cody was waiting for that moment. “If she is all someone else, if she is all artificial, then how did she break her programing and reprogram herself?”

Glandalf deflated some. “I don’t know man. I don’t have the answers.”

“What is rule number one of the Etokuso Gender Bible?” Sek sat up straight.

“You are the only expert on you.” Glandalf knew it by heart. “But her core sequence uses my proprietary methods! She read my work and stole it!”

“Glandalf.” Cody said. “I know how hard you work on your stuff. Without you, this city wouldn’t be where it is today. Everyone here knows exactly how valuable you are, and Clem or any number of programmed Warforged aren’t going to replace you. Warforged as a concept are tools. Clem is a person. She didn’t take your work because she couldn’t do it herself. It’s because you’re fucking good. Without that section, I guarantee there would have had to be a thousand more characters.”

“Thirty-six-hundred.” He responded.

“Then that’s twenty-five-hundred keystrokes saved.” Cody said. “We’re a team, man. We can’t build portals without you just like we can’t clean dishes without Gary or make bologna buckets without Bart.”

Glandalf took a deep breath and let it all out in a sigh. “Ok. You’re right. I will honor her as a person, but I reserve the right to make my own judgments on other Warforged.”

“Fair.” Cody nodded.

“Let’s go see her.” Thiccolus got up.

“Oh no.” Sek turned to Cody with a predatory smile. “Catboy has plans with me. We’re going to see the romantic sunset at the Peepee River.”

“Oh,” Thiccolus nodded. “Then we can all go together, cause Clem lives down by the river.”

“In a van!” Cody responded with absolute madness for the joke he was going to make next shift.