"Ha, told you we'd do this!"
Yeah yeah, I have an assignment and the very first question is some horrible combinatorics shit so let's get this over with.
"Okay nerd. Well, I can tell you that we're in a cafe for starters."
I thought the setting was a classist generation ship.
"Yeah, a cafe in a classist generation ship, sure. The upper class part of it though. I'm vibing a smashed avo... Shit, are you going to keep writing Australian mannerisms into me?"
Can't exactly help it. Is smashed avo uniquely Australian though?
"I don't know, google it."
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=is+smashed+avo+an+australian+dish
Seems not. Anyway, so you're in a sci-fi hipster cafe. It's an inner ring establishment, which corresponds to the upper class of the generation ship passengers. It even has a window, from which you can see the outer rings below you and curving up to either side, illuminated in the glow of the central fusion reactor. Beyond that stretches the inky blackness of space, shot through with the kaleidoscopic glitter of an ion propulsion trail, like the aurora borealis. The cafe is called... Let's say it's called 'Homeward View', because as the ion exhaust implies this window is facing opposite to the direction of travel.
"Sure, real nice. I guess Gilgamoc is here too?"
A camel stands by the table at which Chris is seated, staring impassively about the room.
"Sweet. Have a seat Gil, don't be shy! I already know what you are."
The camel stares at Chris. Then with a disgruntled snort - "or maybe a dissnortled grunt, haha" - its face disappeared back into a tumble of ragged cloth and hide, reemerging under the familiar snake mask.
"In these strange places where chairs are abundant, I find that the snake is a comfortable form to take," says Gilgamoc, curling up in a cushioned chair opposite Chris. He looks out the window.
"The night sky, it looks strange..."
"Oh boy..." sighs Chris. "If you're fine with it I might just skip the part where I explain modern cosmology to the caveman."
I concur.
"Cosmology?" repeats Gilgamoc.
"Nothing interesting," Chris dismisses, snapping his fingers and calling out to the room at large, "hey we're ready to order!"
A gorgeous woman wearing a black leather leotard, tights, and false bunny ears approaches the table, high heels clacking wantonly with each decisive stride. She gracefully seats herself on the tabletop, crossing her legs, and with a flourish produces a notepad and pen.
"Anything I can get you boys?" the waitress bunny asks the abomination, winking. Chris gapes.
"Um..."
It's Easter.
"..."
Look if I'm going to write this whole thing out in one go, then I'm at least going to give myself a nice scene to enjoy along the way.
"...Well this is a new level of fan-service but sure. Yeah, I'll just get a smashed avo please. And a coffee, double shot. Gil?"
"Do you study the rabbit?" Gilgamoc enquires of the waitress politely, much to Chris' exasperation.
"Study the rabbit?" the waitress replies, considering the question. "To be honest, I don't think I've ever even seen a picture of a real rabbit. They can be a pretty bad invasive species, so the TSA legislated that they be stricken from the gene banks of any colony ship that's headed for a carbon-based biosphere. The only reason I know anything about them is because we had it as a case study for my interstellar policy course."
"Ah, so you study cases," concludes Gilgamoc, as Chris looks on impatiently like the idiot he it, "like a scholar."
"Yeah, I guess so!" the waitress agrees, proudly tossing her hair away from her sinuous shoulders and beaming. "I'm doing a law degree at the automated tertiary education facility. I've been getting pretty good grades, but it's expensive, and I'm still supporting my family back in the mid-ring. I've had to take on a lot of shifts here to make ends meet..."
"Dude, Tom... Where are you going with this?"
Yeah I don't really know anymore, but I'm finding it oddly compelling, whatever it is. I suppose we should move on.
"But that's enough about me!" says the waitress, clicking her pen and sliding off the table. "A smashed avo and a coffee, shouldn't be long. Let me know if I can get you anything else."
Gilgamoc waves goodbye, then looks back towards Chris.
"She said many words, and I understood few of them," he admits in a matter of fact way.
"Yeah get used to that in this setting," says Chris. "Anyway. The fight. You probably realise, by now, what's been going on with the library and such."
"I get sent to a foreign place. I kill. I get sent back."
"Mundanely speaking, that's pretty much it. We're in sort of competition, getting matched up against each other to see who wins."
"Are we to fight each other."
"Yeah, but don't go leaping over the table at me yet, because guess what? It's your lucky day! I surrender"
"Really?"
Really?
"You bet. I surrender! You can kill me. I'd rather enjoy my smashed avo before I go, but after that you can go nuts. It doesn't even have to be painless really, as long as you're thorough. I want to be totally, utterly, unretconably dead."
Gilgamoc peers at the abomination from behind his inscrutable snake mask, fingers steepled somewhere in the folds of his robe.
"Why?"
"What do you mean 'why'? Hasn't anyone ever told you not to look a gift horse in the mouth? I'm giving you a free win here."
"Looking gift horses in the mouth is what I do."
"True. Okay then, I might as well tell you while we wait for Judge Judy to hop back. Where to start... Well, firstly, none of this is real. You're a character in some asshole's story, which is being read by like four other assholes. They're the reason we exist, but they're also the reason that we're fighting, so basically they're all a bunch of motherfuckers. With me so far?"
"No. But continue."
"Sure. So, one of these asshole motherfuckers is called 'tf2godz', and he's the one who created me. If I win in this story, then he wins in reality. You were created by someone else, called 'Thomas Barnsley', and if you win then he wins. He's the one writing us and everything we experience right at this very minute. Capiche?"
"No."
"Look well here's the upshot. I don't like this Tom guy, but tf2godz? That man I hate more than anything in the universe, both real and imagined. Because not only did he bring me into this frivolous, ephemeral existence; he brought me in with the ability to understand the frivolous ephemerality of my existence! I'm cursed to live my life, if it can even be called such, knowing that I'm just a puppet. Knowing that the concept of 'myself' barely even makes sense, since 'I', everything that is 'me', is just an imaginary construct shared between a a handful of real consciousnesses. Sure, maybe they aren't even 'real'. Maybe they're just characters in a much bigger story, writing us in our story for the entertainment of an even greater consciousness. But at least they can pretend damnit!"
Chris rubs his forehead, exhausted by the confusing reality (or lack thereof) of his being.
"Are you following Gil?"
"Yes, it's all starting to make sense," Gilgamoc lies, hoping it would shut Chris up.
"See, I know you're lying, because Tom just wrote that you were lying, and I can read all that! But that probably doesn't help. All I'm saying, is that I want you to kill me, so that I can make someone who wants me to kill you feel sad. Can you do that for me?"
Gilgamoc continues to scrutinise Chris. He flicks his tongue, thinking.
"Honestly? You said many words, and I understood none of them. To act without understanding is folly. I will not blindly kill you."
Chris drums his fingers against the table, frustrated but determined to have his way. There is one sure way to make Gilgamoc understand...
"You really want to understand? Here."
Chris places an object on the table, and slides it towards Gilgamoc. It's a mask, with a single gaping mouth in the middle of it. Gilgamoc picks it up.
"This mask... It bears your likeness."
"Yep. It's a Chris mask. Maybe if you put it on then you'll see the world like I do. You won't like it."
Gilgamoc inspects the mask, as the bunny waitress returns with Chris' meal.
"Here you are, smashed avo on toast and a coffee! Enjoy!"
"Hold on a second... What is this? Looks like a scoop of dry green ice-cream on damp corn bread more than any sort of smashed avo I've ever seen."
"I'm sorry, but we are on a space ship up here. We use a synthetic avocado derivative for the smashed avocado, and a gluten-carbohydrate brick for the toast. The coffee is-"
"Yeah, I don't think I want to know what the coffee is," Chris interupts, "thanks sweetie, that's all."
The waitress turns tail with well-concealed sourness while Chris takes a bite out of his equally sour final meal.
"Jesus, what's the point of an oppressive class system if you can't even eat a good bougie brunch... Yeah, you can kill me any time now Gil. I'm done with this existence."
"Hold on," says Gil, "I'm going to try out this mask."
"Sure thing buddy."
Chris takes a hopeful sip of his coffee, and grimaces.
"Don't say I didn't warn you though."
Solemnly, Gilgamoc raises the Chris mask to his face, and swaps it with his snake mask. A pair of Chrises stare at each other from across the table for a moment. Then, in unison, they look at you and I.
"No..." says Gilgamoc.
"Yes," says Chris.
Sorry, I say.
...
Gilgamoc calmly swaps back to the snake mask, and then, just as calmly, snaps Chris mask in his hands.
"So now you'll kill me?" asks Chris.
"I will," Gilgamoc agrees.
"Now that's more like it! Woo, oblivion here I come."
"How best shall I kill you? You said you wanted me to be thorough, but I do not know your weaknesses."
"If you want my suggestion, use this."
Chris pulls out a small revolver, laying it on the table between him and the snake man.
"It's Chekhov's gun. It shoots Occam's razors laced with McGuffin. Should be enough to kill any multidimensional abomination in one shot. Just point the long end at me and yank this little thing to trigger the firing mechanism, you'll work it out."
Gilgamoc gingerly picks up Chekhov's gun, examining it.
"Do you have any last words, Chris?" he asks, taking careful aim at the abomination.
"I'm not sure, do I?" Chris retorts, and Gilgamoc can tell that it is not a question aimed at him. For a moment, there is silence.
"I guess not then."
The shapeshifter pulls the trigger, blowing a hole right through Chris's head. For a moment he sways back and forth, blood dripping from the corner of his wide mouth, then topples forward face-first into his unfinished smashed avo.
Appropriate, I think, that his grave reflects his existence; synthetic.