Part Two

*  *  *  *  *

         There was a slight wind coming off the water far below, bringing cold air from who knew where.  Tristian zipped his coat up a little tighter, staring at the various jagged structures that ringed the street on either side around them.  Most of the buildings possessed a sensibility to them that resembled nothing human, angles curving outward and clashing colors predominating.  Some represented a weird conglomerate of alien and human design ideas, notably where the buildings had been damaged and quickly repaired.  The current occupants of Legoflas weren’t as interested in art as functionality.
         He could see some of the soldiers going in and out of doors, their black uniforms standing out against the garishly colored bricks.  The city was in constant motion with soldiers coming and going, sometimes seeming to vanish right in mid-step.  The air was saturated in a soft humming that only the waves far below threatened to drown out.  When a scent did come up, it carried the smell of age, of preservation and continuation.
         Tristian was paying extra attention to all these details to distract himself from the fact that a billion year old robot was attempting to give him relationship advice.
         “You rarely talk about her, I’ve noticed,” the General was saying.  Most of the passerbys on the street kept on with their business without batting an eye toward either of them.  The General was more inclined toward people getting work done than sticking with protocol.  Most of the whispers or stares were more for Tristian, who wasn’t often seen at Legoflas.  Most of them probably think I’m one of the Agents.
         “Generally when you and I are together we’re either getting shot at or preventing something from blowing up . . . there isn’t much time for small talk.”  He absently kicked at a stone, watching it tumble toward the platform edge and sail right off.  In a fog shrouded distance he could see other platforms and the slim bridges that linked them, all sitting on pillars that plunged straight down into the ocean.  And beyond that, it was hard to tell.  “And don’t take any offense to this, but I tend to be a private-“
         ”What is she like?” the General asked suddenly, the question casual but delivered in a tone that suggested he expected some kind of answer.
         Tristian suppressed a sigh.  I need to know more people with these problems.  “She’s . . . nice.”  He looked down, tempted to just leave it at that.  But somehow he could envision this getting back to Lena somehow.  Like the first time she and the General.  Ah, you must be the one Tristian described as nice.  He imagined her staring at him with her arms crossed, trying not to laugh, busting him with a That’s all you could say about me?
         The thought made him laugh quietly.  The General didn’t react, although his lack of facial features made it hard to tell what exactly he was thinking.  Drawing a deep breath, he did his best to continue.  They were in a sparser section of the city now, with no soldiers immediately present.  It was  just their voices.  It was just his voice.  “Lena’s, she’s . . . she’s feisty, she’s not afraid to tell you when you’re not living up to your own standards.  But she cares about people, she’d do anything for Jina, for anyone that she considers a friend.  When I try to describe the nuttiness that we experience out here, she listens, she asks questions and she never at any point seems to think I’m crazy.”  As he was talking Tristian he started to stroll over to the edge of the platform.  The wind was catching strands of his hair and forcing them back.  The fabric of his coat rippled against the breeze as he got closer.  It was a long way down, although the rocks were clearly visible far below.  “She’s smart, probably smarter than me, when I tell her stories she’s always picking up on oddities and discrepancies that I don’t even notice at the time.  We can take a walk and she won’t ask where we’re going, even when it’s clear she thinks I’ve gotten lost.  Sometimes she sings to herself when she thinks people aren’t listening and looks embarrassed when she realizes we have been.”  He ran one foot along the edge of the platform, so that the ball of it dangled into the air.  But it didn’t feel dangerous.  “I’m glad we met and I’m glad I know her and I’d like to keep knowing her, for as long as I can.  Know her better, if she’ll let me.”
         “So you can decide what kind of gift to purchase for her?” the General called out, his voice somehow carrying easily.
         Tristian looked toward the sky.  “God, yes.  That’d be a start.”  He danced back a step from the edge, staring straight down as if he wanted to challenge the ocean to come up and get him.  “Does that tell you what you want to know?”
         “Perhaps.”  The General let a few seconds go by before speaking again.  “You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.  Is she the first?”
         “First what?” Tristian said sharply, casting a glance over his shoulder.  The glimmer of the day was dimming but Tristian couldn’t find anything in the sky resembling a sun.  Sometimes he’d ask Brown about it and the other man would just say, Oh, it was over there but you just missed it and he could never tell if he was kidding or not.  “Do you mean first . . . oh.”  He rubbed the back of his neck, still trying to process that he was discussing this with the General.  “No, she’s not the . . . I mean, she is in a way, she’s . . .” he let himself stop long enough to gather his thoughts.  “She’s the first one I’ve felt this strongly about in a while.  That’s true enough.”
         “Then you know you’re not going to be able to encompass everything that you feel in a single gift.”  The General’s voice was much closer and Tristian to see that he had glided forward silently.
         Tristian frowned, letting his heel brush right up against empty space, just to see if he was stronger than gravity’s tiny tug.  “I know.  But . . . I want to capture at least part of it and not just get her a necklace or perfume or anything fancy simply because I can.”  He was staring at the ground but his gaze flicked over to the General.  “I am going to drive myself crazy, aren’t I?”
         “You certainly need to come to a decision soon, it seems.”  Whether this was the General’s idea of a joke was unclear.  “The Commander’s zeal in steering you toward advice is his way of telling you not to worry about this.”
         “Mm, that sounds like Joe.”  Tristian’s voice was barely a murmur and he was once again staring at the cracked and seemingly glistening pavement.  His breathing was the only noise for a good half-minute, during which time his whole body seemed to freeze.
         Then, in a bursted flurry of motion he turned back toward the venue of the sky, wrapping his arms around himself.  “General,” he began, “when . . . when you said before that it wasn’t uncommon for the hosts to be like this . . . what did you mean by that?”
         The General didn’t answer right away.  Though for all Tristian knew he could have been multi-tasking several different converations at the same time.  He wasn’t completely clear on what exactly the General was capable of, and the Agents were never really too helpful, unless they considered Anything a complete answer.
         “What did the Agents tell you about the hosts?” the General finally asked.
         Tristian closed his eyes briefly.  He was getting used to people never giving him direct answers to questions these days, although it was still a bit maddening.
         “Not much, except that I count as one,” he finally said, opening his eyes and letting himself see only clear sky.  “I know there’s been ones before me.”  Across the gap a batch of low buildings were shimmering, probably from time distortion.  The backwards soldiers were coming in, rearrived from nonstarted missions.  It hurt his head to even think about it.  “And that I’m the only one at the moment.”
         “That’s all more or less true,” the General replied.  With one stiffened arm he nudged at Tristian, indicating for him to keep walking.  “Sometimes I think the reason the Agents aren’t all that forthcoming is that they’ve explained the details so many times they forget who they’ve told.”  They reached one of the slender bridges that linked the platforms, the structure seemingly made out of a kind of flexible glass, with darkened snowflakes captured inside.  Tristian stepped to the side to let the General go first.
         “How many have you met?” Tristian found himself asking, telling himself not to let the question go further than that.  Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to control the flood.  What were they like?  What did they do?  Was there more than one at once?  And the question he kept trying to bury so deep he might drown it, even as it kept bobbing to the surface.  How did they die?
         “Most of them.”  Ahead of him, the General’s eyestalk swivelled disconcertingly around his body to regard Tristian.  What were they like?  Tell me.  But he said nothing.  “I’ve been around a long time, Tristian.  Not as long as the Agents, but long enough.”  What did they do?  But even that was avoiding the more specific question.  “And I’ve noticed a few traits keep popping up over and over again.”
         What happened to the one before me?  He barely stopped himself from saying it outloud.  Why am I here now?  The water rolled and seethed under their feet.  Nobody knew how far down it went.  Or if they did, nobody was saying.  “Christmas has been around for that long?”  The joke sounded flat even to his ears.  But his brain still wanted to shut down in the face of the enormity of it.
         “The hosts, for lack of a better word,” the General continued, as if Tristian hadn’t spoke, “tend to be overachievers.”  What happened to the one before me?  Am I the result of overachieving gone wrong?  “Faced with the realization of what they are and having little to go on but the Agents’ vague hints and evasive explanations, they’re forced to make it up as they go along.  And once you’ve gotten used to saving planets, it’s hard to switch that off in other aspects of your life.”
         The two of them reached the other side, a section of the city in a bit more disarray.  Some of the rubble was due to time’s inevitable wearing down, but the more bombed out portions were the results of wars in the city itself, from what he was told.  Soot still sketched out the outlines of bodies on the walls, not all of them human shaped.
         “So what are you trying to tell me?”  Tristian made his way over to one of the broken walls, the brick of which hadn’t fallen over so much as melted.  It still smelled like it was burning inside the stone.
         “Learn to switch it off, Tristian.”  The General’s shadow was a block laid out on the pavement, forever and unmoving.  “For the sake of your own sanity.”
         “I don’t know if I can,” he murmured, running his fingers along the blackened dust, trying to find a face he might recognize.  It came off smooth, staining his skin until he rubbed it off.  Louder, he added: “This isn’t completely about Christmas presents, is it?”
         “Call it advice I wish I’d been able to give earlier.”  Whether he had wanted to give it to Tristian earlier or to another host entirely, the General didn’t elaborate.  “One action does not change the world, or determine it.  It doesn’t matter how big or small the world is.  Things don’t work that way.”
          But I want this to work.  With a grunt Tristian stood up, his eyes following the history etched in the grooves and scars on the age riddled brick.  “I care about her, General.”
         “I have no doubt about that.”  The shadow cast by his armpiece laid over Tristian, a rod pointing directly into his brain.  “Right this second I could put out an order to procure any object from anywhere in the Universe, from any time period.  All you have to do is say what you want and it will happen.  And you can give it to her, something so unique that she’d never be able to conceive that it even existed.  She’d be amazed and flattered and probably never forget it for the rest of her life.”  Tristian studied the wall, letting his hand explore a star-shaped mark, the arms of it thrown out heedlessly, the event so fresh that it refused to fade.  “But that’s not what you want, is it?”
         “No.”  He didn’t hesitate to expel the syllable.  At his touch an oddly shaped bit of debris tumbled to the ground.  He followed it down, crouching down to find that particular piece amidst the scattered stones.  For the first time he noticed that footprints seemed pressed into the pavement, like they had bled up from somewhere below.  “Let me ask you this, General . . . how many . . . hosts . . .” he still couldn’t get used to the term, “how many of them were able to have . . . relationships?”
         “They’ve all had their networks, their support.  Whether they sought it or not.”  The General pivoted, taking his shadow into new angles.  Tristian found the rock and examined it closer, finding scratches burned into it like missing names.  “But that’s not the kind of relationship you’re talking about, are you?”
         “It’s not what I’d prefer.”  He had to resist the urge to throw it out, fling out onto the water to see how long he could spot it and how far it would go before it dropped.
         The General made a sound that could have been ruminative, if he were one for making noises.  “I am not going to lie to you.  The hosts don’t form . . . attachments easily.”
         Tristian laughed hoarsely at that.  “Well, that fits.  I don’t form attachments very easily.”  In a sharp motion he threw the rock at the wall, watching it bounce off and chip another piece off as it went down, the ricochet deflecting itself off his coat and getting lost amongst another misshapen pile of debris.  “Dammit.”  He wasn’t even sure what he was referring to.
         Suddenly the General was next to him, without a sound or a hint.  “Don’t get me wrong,” the General said, his voice strangely insistent, “you are not all cut from the same cloth.  That I think is the whole point, as far as any of us can tell.  Pressures will lead you into certain similiar behaviors, but you are not the others, Tristian, and they are not you.  You need to understand that, because I don’t think the Agents are very good at getting those notions across.  You are the latest in a very long line, a line that will continue long after you’re gone.  But you are also utterly unique, just like the rest of them.”
         Tristian stared at the General for an extended moment, the wind rustling the loose pieces of the ruin and creating a hollow whistling song.  The General’s eye looked back at him without blinking or commenting, until Tristian finally turned away sharply, with a snap of his gaze.
         “Thanks.”  He didn’t know what else to say.  Yet the words kept bubbling up inside of him, a brew he kept tasting in the back of his throat.  Not all of them were able to escape.  Especially the important ones.  “I shouldn’t need the vote of confidence but it looks like I do.”
         “Just because I said they don’t easily form attachments doesn’t mean they aren’t formed.  If I’ve learned one thing about the hosts, it’s that they have a tendency to throw themselves wholeheartedly into any endeavor they set.  The trick is to choose which ones you think are worth it.  No different from anyone else, really.”  He swivelled, gliding back toward the bridge, and the more populated parts of the city.  “Come on, we should go back so you can travel home.”
         Tristian followed, his brow furrowed thoughtfully.  After they had taken a few steps he said, “What would you get her, General?”  What made him ask, he couldn’t say.  I’d think I was getting desperate, if I hadn’t passed that point a while ago.
         “Me?”  The General oddly enough didn’t seem surprised by the question.  “If I were to choose to buy for someone, I would probably get them flowers.”
         “Really?”  Tristian tried to imagine the General with a bouquet stuck on the end of his arm and presenting it to someone.  He was having a difficult time doing so, especially as the only  person he could envision the General buying gifts for was Brown.  “That’s not what I would have expected you to-“
         ”Perpetual Stems from a planet at the galaxy’s core.  The entire zone is bathed in starlight and that’s what they feed on.  They’re normally opaque but when brought into an atmosphere they turn translucent and the leaves sometimes display refracted images of where they’ve been.  And because the area is so barren they fertilize themselves by devolving back into their own seed . . .”  The General sounded quite fascinated by the whole concept.
         “Mm,” Tristian said, half-listening.  Just what he needed, to give Lena a flower where she had to explain why it was projecting pictures.  “I don’t think that’s what I’m going-“
         ”And the most interesting aspect of it, Tristian, is that it’s constantly vibrating.  You don’t notice in an airless setting but once placed on a planet with an atmosphere, it starts to excite the molecules and . . . it makes a noise not unlike singing . . .”
         Tristian just rolled his eyes and kept walking.

*  *  *  *  *

         “Socks,” Will said, squinting at the television and twisting the joystick in his hand.
         “When did you start getting domestic?” Brian asked, hopping a little bit back on the couch while calmly hitting buttons on his controller.
         “No, hear me out here.”  Will worked the controller with one hand for a second while cracking the knuckles on the other hand.  “For someone like him it’s practical.”
         “Practical?”  Brian snorted.  “They tell me he carries a damn sword around under his jacket.  Practical would be like body armor.  Or a big gun.”  He scooted forward a few inches on the cushion, leaning in closer.  “I mean, really, a sword?  What the hell is that going to do?”
         “No, seriously, socks.”  Will risked a glance over at his friend.  “Because whenever you go anywhere, like on vacation, what’s the one thing you always forget . . . socks and underwear, right?  And most of the time you can go buy them at the local store but the guy is visiting other planets . . . an extra pair will really come in handy.”
         “Something tells me that isn’t his highest priority,” Brian pointed out.  “But that’s just me.”
         Will sniffed.  “Whatever, I think it’s a great idea.”  He turned to his left.  “What do you think, Lena?”
         Lena, sitting between them with one leg crossed over the other, shot Will a glance.  “You’re not going to be offended if I heard some other options first?”
         “Hey, suit yourself,” Will responded, jerking the joystick and muttering a curse at whatever was happening on the screen.
         “I don’t get why you’re even asking us anyway,” Brian noted, shooting her a glance.  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t girls supposed to know this stuff innately?  My first inclination is to tell you to buy him some deodorant and put a nicer bow on it and . . . ah, you bastard-“ he shouted at the screen.
         Will smirked.  “Liked that, didn’t you?”
         “No problem, I can recover.  Just give me a second here to kick your ass . . .”
         Lena stared at her lap, frowning.  “I just wanted to get him something really nice, I thought you guys might know what he really likes.”
         Brian laughed.  “Oh, right, us.  What did we talk about the last time we all hung out, Will?”
         Will thought for a second.  “We mostly tried to avoid the question of so what planet have you been on recently . . . we discussed a movie he hadn’t seen and made him watch some TV show I don’t think he even liked.”
         “Then we went to a diner.”
         Will nodded.  “Good point, then we did that.  Can you get anything from that?”
         Lena uncrossed her legs, stamping the one foot down the floor.  “Christ, you guys are supposed to be his best friends.”
         “Whoa, hey, we ain’t that close,” Brian pointed out quickly.  “I’m just along for the ride with this crew.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy and all but if not for your  best friend or this joker sitting on the other side of you, I’d never see him.  And I’d be fine with that.”
         “You’re an ass,” Will said, leaning forward again.  “And in two seconds you’re going to be a dead . . .”
         “Just being honest and . . . goddamn . . .” he almost leapt out off the couch.  “What the hell was that  for?”  He flopped back, shooting Will a dirty look.
         Will smiled back innocently.  “All’s fair, son.”
         “I mean, you can’t think of anything he likes . . .”
         “Listen . . .” Will said, turning so that one elbow was resting on the arm of the couch.  “Unlike my jackass compatriot over there, I have no problem with calling Tristian my friend-“
         ”Hey, all I said was that we weren’t like buddies or anything . . .”
         “I don’t have it in me to be that cold,” Will continued smoothly.  “I’ve known Tristian for a long time, I’d say we’re pretty good friends . . .”  He shifted again, drawing one leg up onto the cushion.  “But here’s the thing, Lena, the guy’s sealed up.  I mean, he’ll talk to you and all, don’t get me wrong . . . he and I have had some pretty good times . . . but for all the talking he won’t say much about himself, and you don’t realize it until we have a situation like this.  Where we’ve actually got to think about it.”  Will shrugged.  “The guy keeps to himself, some folks are like that.  Not all of us possess Brian’s effervescent personality.”
         “Screw you,” Brian shot back.  He gestured at the screen.  “You ready to go again?”
         “He talks to me,” Lena muttered, staring at a place that wasn’t there.
         Brian patted her on the shoulder.  “You’re a bit of a special case there, hon.”
         “Look,” Will said, “this may be news to you but the lad’s got a bit of a thing for you . . . ooh, you’re coming out with both barrels I see, pal . . .”
         “Yeah, the gloves are off now.”  Brian jerked the controller so hard that the entire couch shook.
         “I’m aware,” Lena told Will, rolling her eyes.
         “Then don’t freak out over it, just get him anything and he’ll be happy with it, because it came from you.”
         “Everyone keeps telling me that,” Lena said in an exasperated tone.  “Like I’m the only person he ever thinks about . . .”
         “That’s not true, he thinks about me all the time,” Brian deadpanned.
         “Yeah, when he wonders who the sissiest person he is he knows . . .” Will narrowed his eyes and added in a lower tone, “Though that wasn’t a bad shot there, Tex.”
         “Thanks.”
         “A shirt isn’t going to cut it.  I mean, he goes off to God knows where, to places I can’t even imagine and I’m supposed to get him something normal, like he’s just this regular guy,” Lena said, looking from one guy to the other as both of them focused on the game at hand.  “But I don’t want to pretend he is, that I can just get him like a movie or a CD and have that be okay . . .”
         “Lena, Lena . . .” Brian said, looking sharply toward her.
         “I don’t want him to think I pretend certain parts of his life don’t exist . . .” she finished quietly.  She bit her lip then, like she had just admitted too much.
         “Pause the game,” Brian said suddenly.  Will gave him an odd look but did as he was ordered.
         “Look, okay, I don’t know Tristian . . . I’m not even going to pretend I know him well.  If not for Jina I’d have a hard time remembering him except for a picture in a high school yearbook that I don’t even look in anymore.”  He put the joystick down, turned toward her.  The video game music, a warbling looping electronic squawl, kept playing underneath his words, underscoring when it should have been obliterating.  “I don’t know what the guy is going through and in all honesty, I don’t much care.”  Seeing the look Will was giving him, he threw his arms out defensively.  “I’m sorry, I don’t.  Especially after the little incident at the restaurant.”
         “Fair enough,” Will said flatly.  “But you better be going somewhere with this, buddy.”
         Brian looked down, let out a deep breath.  “Okay.  Thing is, if I were him and I was stuck in these foreign, exotic places all the time.  If I was never home . . . he’s not going to want a reminder that he’s out there all the time.  He knows that, because he’s living it.”  He focused on Lena again.  “You get him a present that says, hey, you’re out in space all the time . . . that’s the easy gift, if you ask me.  It’s like,” he gestured toward the television, “getting a video game designer another video game.  Yeah, he’ll probably like it but it’s not a big stretch to assume that, hm?  Just because he does this doesn’t mean he wants to be known as outer space guy all the time.”
          “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Lena said, almost to herself.
         “Look, just get him something normal.  Nothing that astronauts would get or . . . Buck Rogers or whatever else you want to call it.  Something that will remind him of home and you and . . . why are you all looking at me like that?”  Brian stopped, leaning back with a quizzical expression.
         Will just shook his head.  “Times like this, I see why Jina keeps you around.”
         Brian looked momentarily flustered.  “It was just a suggestion.”
         “That’s okay.”  Lena patted his hand in a comforting fashion.  “I’ll make sure that Jina knows how thoughtful you can be.  She’ll be expecting something really nice this year, then.”
         “Oh geez . . .” Brian mimed reaching for his wallet, “how much do I have to pay you guys to keep this quiet?”
         “That ain’t enough money in the world,” Will said, laughing.
         “But what do I get him that’s normal?” Lena wondered.
         Will tapped his chin.  “I think this brings us back nicely to my original suggestion . . . socks.”
         Brian tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling.  “Lord, help us.”
         “The gift that keeps on giving . . .”
         Lena put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh.  “Well, this has been real helpful, guys, but I think I’m going to-“
         ”Oh, and by the way . . .” Will hit a button on the controller, “think fast . . .”  The looping music suddenly lurched back into motion.
         “Have fun . . .” she said, getting up.  “And try not to kill each other.”
         “You son of a-“
         ”If his attempts at murder are as good as his playing, I don’t think I’ll have a problem . . .” Will called out.
         The sound of the shutting door was barely heard over the game’s blaring squeal.