Charles looks super giddy like he can’t believe he’s doing this. He strides forward—do you get it, strides—and announces himself.
“I am… Charles-lemagne!”
#Kit: Oh My Stupid Sparkly Elf Goddess
#Allocator: Not to your liking?
#Kit: The plot there is so straightforward unsurprising and mainstream that it hurts
#Allocator: Well, most fantasy settings you've experienced are inspired by LoTR.
#Kit: It’s so BASIC
#Allocator: Is Charles happy?
#Kit: YES, IT’S ABSURD
#Allocator: Then you’re doing a good job.
#Kit: aaaaaaaaaa
#Allocator: My calculations indicate he’ll be staying there about ten years.
#Kit:
#Kit:
#Kit:
#Allocator: I acknowledge your feelings on the matter.
#Kit: no
#Allocator: I think it’s best if you return when he's done. I'll be able to show you my project then.
#Kit: in a decade
#Allocator: Yes.
#Kit: that’s literally forever
#Kit: I’ll be so different by then. What if I can’t guide him TO THE MAX?
#Allocator: I expect you’ll be able to.
#Allocator: I expect it mathematically.
#Kit: quit deterministically predicting my life!
#Allocator: No. :)
#Allocator: Anyway, see you in a decade.
Professor Kittredge raised an eyebrow, and his lips twitched in a hint of a smile.
“Elementary, really,” he pronounced, gazing over the assembled. One of them was the killer… and piece by piece, the evidence was becoming impossible to deny. It was time, at long last, to bring this plot to a close…
…but first, he would indulge himself in a delicious parlor scene.
“Well?” demanded Madame Plumwimple, hands clenching nervously in her petticoats. “Are you going to tell us?”
“YES,” buzzed Killbot3000. “RELINQUISH THE INFORMATION. KILLBOT COMMANDS IT. WHICH OF US TERMINATED THE WORTHLESS FLESHBAG?”
“In due time, Killbot, in due time.” The professor lit his pipe and waved out the match. “And why so anxious? Surely it’s not… a guilty conscience?”
“WHAT,” protested Killbot3000, its enormous metal-crushing claws clenching nervously in its petticoats. “N-NO, NOTHING OF THE SORT. KILLBOT JUST… HAS TO GET HOME TO THE KIDS.”
“Mm,” said the professor, smile growing wider. “I’m sure.”
The phone began to ring, a high, shrill note. Everyone jumped, the professor included.
“Er, excuse me,” said the professor. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear.
#Allocator: Kit.
The professor blinked. “Er, I beg your pardon?”
#Allocator: It’s time.
“Ah, what do you—”
#Kit:
#Kit:
#Kit: whoa
#Kit: I was doing the thing!
#Allocator: You were.
#Kit: The memory thing!
#Allocator: Yes.
#Kit: aaaaaaaaa
#Kit: don’t let me do that again
#Allocator: I won’t, until the next time you ask me to.
#Kit: Creeper >:p
#Kit: Ok hang on
I put down the phone. It’s the ancient kind that you work with two hands, so I have to put it down twice. “Okay, later, everybody!” I pronounce. “Allocator needs me for a thing.”
“BUT WAIT,” Killbot3000 protests, beeping urgently, “WHICH OF US ASSASSINATED PRESIDENT WOOFINGTON?”
“Oh.” I tilt my head and try to remember. “Oh, it was Miss Plum Whatever.”
They’re all giving me looks and the looks are pretty different from each other but that’s okay because I need to hurry up and save superbuddy Charlie from his stupid mainstream plot!
“Okay later everybody!” I say. “Gee-two-gee byeeeeeeee—”
I pop into the stupid LoTR U and just rock the Balrog bod. Hashtag deal with it.
I spread my wings and clear my throat, to get all the boldface out.
“YO,” I bellow.
“Charles-lemagne” is walking up the dangly bridge suspended with sparkly elvish rope. He’s wearing fine elvish cloth woven by blessed maidens or whatever. He has a real unhappy look on his face, like Killbot3000 but without the baleful red eye endlessly seeking out vulnerable areas.
He sees me and does a double take. “Beast!” he shouts, but his heart isn’t really in it.
“Hey!” I protest.
I pout. He blinks at me.
“Kit?”
“Who’d you think it was, some kind of stuffy, condescending detective born out of my ambivalent disgust with myself for playing memory games?”
“What?”
“Get in the portal, loser, we’re going to Bird Simulator.”
Then we were birds for a year and it was exactly what we both needed.
We’re in the sterile white room, the room where I met him. We have ice cream.
“Living in a perfect conclave got old faster than I would have thought,” he says. He looks all pensive and soul-searchy so I’m really trying hard to pay attention to his intimate revelations but also, in U zero, ice cream melts.
“How was the elf-sex?”
He looks at me sidelong like for some reason he’s annoyed.
“It was great,” he concedes.
I make a mad noise ’cause I’ve decided to hate Elwen ’cause sometimes it’s really fun to hate someone and I think she and I would be good for each other in that way.
“But we didn’t do anything. I wanted to fight orcs and save Middle-earth, but they just sat around being perfect.”
“Right??” And my blackrom hatecrush was totally justified. “I hate those worlds where everyone talks about how perfect they are and everything is also perfect and nothing ever happens. It’s like, you have ultimate access to the fundament of your reality and you’ve decided the best use of your eternal time is to be smug.”
He nods, and I guess that’s all I’m getting. But that’s okay, I like him.
“I’d like to be productive,” he says suddenly.
“Whaddya mean?”
“Productive?” He looks at me askance. “Do you… not have that, anymore? I want to benefit other people.”
And my heart swells a couple sizes. ’Cause that’s really noble of him! And it takes a super dedicated and creative and determined person to run a U but it’s a super rewarding path.
I’m about to tell him about a couple game ideas I’ve been kicking around when—
#Allocator: I believe this is my cue.
The wall flickers and becomes space, and I guess Charles got used to a bunch of magic stuff happening just whenever ’cause he doesn’t even flinch. Allocator’s big head fades into view.