I Got A Rock

"Hey, Nick, it's Maggie. Feels weird to be leaving you a video message, but whatever. I know all of us in the Apocalypse Team have been hanging out with you when you get the chance, but I was wondering if, you know, you and I could have a private conversation sometime. There's a lot I'd like to tell you, about...stuff. So, anyway, let me know when you get a chance to talk privately. It's...really good to have you back, Nick."

She replayed the message draft, her eighth. I guess that one isn't a disaster. She sent it off before she could talk herself out of it.

Hours passed.

He's busy. He's really busy.

It's fine that he doesn't have time to talk with me, just the two of us. It happens. These are literally world-changing events, Maggie. Get a grip.

It's not as if we ever actually dated. We're just lifelong friends. We spent time together. Good times.

But, it's like there's been a piece of me missing for over a year, and now it's back, but it's also not. Nick might have to leave Earth forever. And...how is that going to feel? Where does that leave me? Missing my best friend, forever?

It almost killed me when he vanished. I encouraged Steve to hire a PI, I encouraged Brian to study the portal physics, but what could I do to help? I don't have any useful skills for that. If he needed me to reach out and drag him home, I'd have gladly done it if I could. But this wasn't motivation issues, he was stranded. And I couldn't help him when it counted. And that's been eating at me.

I don't have any claim on him. I don't even care that he's fucking an alien not-a-demon-no-really. He's had a few girlfriends. I didn't freak out about any of them. Heck, I'd have been worried if he'd still been a virgin by the end of college. If he still hadn't gotten laid by senior year, I'd have...helped him out with that. Because...that's what friends do, right? Naturally.

He's my best friend. I don't know whether I've been a good enough friend back. He kept so much bottled up, and spent so much time alone. I had to go to his father's house or his dorm room and physically drag him out to be social sometimes, especially in the bad old days before he got on medication.

I could barely get him to join the Apocalypse Team for movie nights, even though I could tell he enjoyed them. He liked the company, he just...didn't know what to do with it, or how to handle it. And I didn't want him to be alone, and lonely.

And then he went and got stranded alone on an alien planet for months before he even met the fuak—the fuka—the fucking aliens. Ooafans. Whatever. Poor Nick. I wonder how long it will be before he gives us the real story? So much must have happened. It must have been so hard.

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What can I do to help him now? Maggie thought about how Nick had reacted to getting Earth food.

"Hey, Steve?"

"Mm?" Steve looked up from his laptop.

"How about we put together a care package for Nick?"

"Sounds good. Start a list, and I'll get everything delivered here. Then we can tell him and have him send down the shuttle for it."

"Won't people realize what we're doing?"

"That's a good point. I'll order a big van that we're not going to use, throw them off. The CIA will see through it, but we're not trying to fool them."

"Thanks. I should ask him if his clothing sizes have changed. It looks like he's been wearing cloned T-shirts and jeans for the past year. You'd think some of his alien friends would have given him something else to wear."

"They probably did, and Nick just didn't want to wear them because they felt weird, or he didn't like the color, or something."

Men, Maggie grumbled mentally, and went back to shopping.

A while later, Steve groaned. "Good God damn." He leaned back with his fingers laced behind his head. "This economics textbook is going to be absolute murder on the world once people start agitating for the changes. The powers that be are going to fight it tooth and nail."

Maggie looked up from the long-shelf-life foods she had been shopping through online. She quirked an eyebrow. "What, are they breaking fundamental principles that humans have always used?"

"Big time."

"Quelle surprise."

"They throw out the idea of the 'rational actor' in the first chapter. People are modeled as a matrix of conflicting desires, and advertising is meant to reorder those priorities. It makes sense but the math is killing me."

"I feel your pain," Brian muttered without looking up from his own studying.

Maggie snorted. "The whole 'rational actor' thing sounded stupid when I heard about it. It's completely unsurprising that economists seem to have no clue about how the real economy works, if they're making childishly naive assumptions like that."

"'Liberals think everyone is good. Conservatives think everyone is evil. They're both right'," Brian quoted.

"Libertarians think everyone is a psychic genius," Steve added.

"Fascists think everyone is a coward," Maggie added.

"Communists think everyone is generous," Brian put in.

"Capitalists think everyone is greedy," Maggie shot back.

"And no matter what you do, some percentage of people will stubbornly refuse to fit into the boxes," Vanessa concluded. "Do the aliens have an answer to that?"

"Yeah, but I can't make much sense of that chapter yet. Something about the population being a matrix of matrices, and apparently there are variables that you have to set for each species. Like, 'human nature' is a set of numerical values."

"Didn't we just say that there isn't one 'human nature' and people don't all fit into boxes?"

"Apparently that's one of the values to plug in. I'm not an expert on it yet." Steve shifted in his seat. "Hey, Ness, is Lionel treating you all right?"

"Yeah. Thanks for giving him a talking to. He went from don't worry your pretty little head about it to how else may I serve you my Lady real quick. Your way was much less murder-y than mine was going to be. The Cure This World Foundation will not start off with a felony thanks to you."

"Glad to hear it."

Maggie smiled. There was no way anyone would steamroller Vanessa so long as she had the legal nuances down, and the lawyer Lionel Whatshisname would help with that. Plus whatever space lawyers Nick had access to. By the time Nick left...

Maggie frowned at the thought, then faced it squarely. I have a decision to make.